Endocrine Abstracts

Childhood cancer survivors are a growing population. Lifelong endocrine follow up is essential for brain tumour and bone marrow transplant survivors who received radiotherapy. Patients attending the ‘late effects’ clinic have investigations coordinated with an annual appointment including endocrine bloods, urine protein:creatinine ratio, blood pressure and weight. The Covid-19 pandemic necessitated appointments to be telephone. Patients were asked to arrange their an...

The number of childhood cancer survivors is ever increasing and as this population continues to grow, the long term physical and psychological impact of having cancer treatment in childhood becomes ever more apparent. Childhood cancer survivors are moving into adulthood with significant health needs secondary to their cancer treatment. Acknowledging and addressing these needs is crucial in supporting them on their continued health journey. Patients attending the ‘late eff...

Regarding the debate about whether we should still ablate all patients undergoing total thyroidectomy, the answer is no. Most thyroid cancer patients have an excellent prognosis with a normal life expectancy and among them most of them have a low risk of recurrence. The absence of ablation in patients with thyroid cancer of 1 centimeter or less (pT1a) is already widely applied, so, we are used not to ablate all thyroid cancer patients treated with total thyroidectomy. The ques...

Case History: A 55 year old woman with a BMI of 57.4 was referred to our service to assess her suitability for bariatric surgery given her psychiatric surgery. Her problems with weight began aged 8 when she was sexually abused. She saw a doctor aged 14 who prescribed amphetamines for her weight, and states her problems with drugs as an adult (LSD, cannabis, amphetamines) stemmed from this. She has a diagnosis of EUPD-borderline type, and was prescribed quetiapine which had kep...

Targeted therapies have been used for about 10 years in patients with radioactive iodine refractory differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) or metastatic medullary thyroid cancer (MTC). Decrease in tumor volume, improvement of symptoms, increase in progression free survivals have been observed with different drugs. So far, because of trial design and because of the long survival of patients with metastatic DTC or MTC, the benefit of these drugs on overall survival has not been dem...

Hepcidin is a small circulating 25-amino-acid cysteine-rich peptide first identified in human blood and urine. The hepcidin gene is expressed mainly in the hepatocytes, secreted in the circulation and cleared by the kidney. In mammals, convincing evidence indicates that hepcidin constitutes the master regulator of iron homeostasis; the circulating peptide acts to limit gastrointestinal iron absorption and serum iron by inhibiting dietary intestinal iron absorption and iron rec...

Achieving pregnancy through in vitro fertilization requires a minimum number of oocytes recovered during egg retrieval. These oocytes come from ovarian hyperstimulation that allows the entire oocyte cohort to mature. In physiology in a natural cycle, a dozen follicles are recruited at the beginning of the menstrual cycle under the action of the elevation of the FSH (the « FSH window »). Then, follicles secrete estradiol through aromatase under the action of FSH. By n...

Case history: 21-year-old male presented in November 2006 with visual loss, headaches and fatigue. No previous past medical history. Visual field testing confirmed a left temporal hemianopia with right temporal upper quadrantanopia.Investigations: Brain imaging revealed a large macroadenoma with suprasellar and lateral extension. Hormone testing demonstrated abnormalities in TSH 5.13 mU/L, Free T4 7.1 pmol/l, random Cortisol 64nmol/l and Testosterone 2.3...

Context: Surgery performed in primary hyperaldosteronism (PAH) can achieve biological healing in almost all cases, but blood pressure healing is only obtained in 20 to 55% of cases. The aim of our study is to identify the anthropometric, biological and pathological factors that would be statistically associated with blood pressure outcome in patients after unilateral adrenalectomy for primary aldosteronism between 1996 and 2016.Method: This is a monocent...

A 46 year old male presented with abdominal pain, lethargy and intermittent fever. He described abdominal fullness with cramp-like pains in the left iliac fossa. He reported early satiety and flatulence, but denied weight loss. He had Addison’s disease, diagnosed 18 years earlier with similar symptoms at presentation and diagnostic short Synacthen test, treated with hydrocortisone 20 mg am and 10 mg pm with 100 mcg fludrocortisone once daily. He had however been increasin...