Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Central hypothyroidism can be difficult to diagnose as TSH values often reside within the normal range. The Endocrine Society clinical guideline for hormone replacement in hypopituitarism suggests levothyroxine is indicated for treatment of secondary hypothyroidism where fT4 levels decrease by ≥20%. To determine the reliability of this biochemical marker of secondary hypothyroidism we evaluated evolution of TFTs over time within a cohort of NFPA.<p class=...

It is known that acromegaly may be associated with headache as a significant co-morbidity. Amongst all acromegaly headache patients, there is a unique group with specific types of severe headache that fail to improve despite acromegaly therapy and are resistant to conventional analgesics, however, immediately respond to subcutaneous short-acting (SA) somatostatin analogue (SSA) treatment. We have surveyed 8 tertiary specialist UK centres and identified 18 patients (6 females) ...

Background: Following vaccination for SARS-CoV-2 a significant proportion of individuals experience moderate to severe symptoms. In patients with adrenal insufficiency (AI) this has been reported to translate in to need for increased glucocorticoids and incipient or frank adrenal crises. We assessed occurrence of symptoms, need for glucocorticoid dose adjustment and crises in a large cohort of patients with AI following vaccination for SARS-CoV-2.Methods...

Background: Despite biochemical control of GH and IGF-I levels patients with acromegaly continue to have marked impairment of their well-being. The acromegalic arthropathy has been identified as a significant contributor to the impaired well-being of these individuals. Few data are available to determine the impact of the arthropathy on function.Methods: Patients with a diagnosis of acromegaly under follow-up in six tertiary pituitary centres were invite...

Background: Despite biochemical control of GH and IGF-I levels patients with acromegaly continue to have marked impairment of their well-being. The acromegalic arthropathy has been identified as a significant contributor to the impaired well-being of these individuals. We aimed to establish the true prevalence of arthropathy, distribution of joint involvement and use of analgesics for arthropathy in a large series of patients with acromegaly.Methods: Pat...

Background: Patients with acromegaly experience early onset arthropathy characterised by initial joint space widening due to cartilage hyperplasia, with later degenerative changes characterised by joint space narrowing, sclerosis and osteophyte formation. To date no specific treatment is available for the arthropathy these patients experience, with management being limited to analgesics, anti-inflammatory agents, physiotherapy, joint injections, and potentially joint replaceme...