Endocrine Abstracts

Growth hormone deficiency (GHD) can occur after treatment for acromegaly. It is unclear whether treatment with recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) in these patients is beneficial. Patients were randomized to either 1 year of rhGH replacement (n=10) or placebo followed by rhGH replacement for 1 year (delayed rhGH treatment, n=6). Sixteen patients (8 men, mean age 56 years) with GHD after treatment for acromegaly were studied. Study parameters were assessed at ...

Appropriate treatment of acromegaly results in biochemical control or cure and reduces signs and symptoms, morbidity and excess mortality. Nonetheless, many of these patients still have considerable decreases in quality of life parameters and suffer from increased morbidity due to combinations of factors, including pituitary insufficiency despite optimal endocrine substitution, irreversible effects of previous GH/IGF-1 excess with complex multisystem morbidity, and the effects...

A statement attributed to Aristotle is: ‘You can easily avoid criticism by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.’ If you want to do research, apply for competitive grants and publish relevant scientific papers in competitive journals, criticism is a fact of life. There is also a positive twist to criticism: it is a major driving force to advance knowledge in science.Frequently, the first reaction of authors to critical comments of r...

Background: Hydrocortisone replacement for primary adrenal insufficiency (PAI) is targeted to mimic circadian endogenous cortisol secretion. Nevertheless, patients on stable treatment report impairments in quality of life. The brain is a major target area for cortisol considering it high density of glucocorticoid receptors and previous studies in patients treated for Cushing’s disease (CD) suggest that hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysregulation is related to cognit...

Objective: Psychopathology and maladaptive personality traits are often observed during the active phase of Cushing’s disease (CD). We hypothesized that patients with long-term cure of CD show persistent psychopathology and maladaptive personality traits.Aim: To evaluate psychopathology and personality traits in patients with long-term cure of CD.Patients and methods: We included 67 patients cured of CD (15% males, mean age 53...

Background: Although it has been conceived that type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) is associated with increased myocardial triglyceride (TG) accumulation, it is unknown whether this can be influenced by modifying plasma non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) levels. We therefore determined in uncomplicated DM2 whether modifications in plasma NEFA influence myocardial TG content and myocardial function.Research design and methods: Myocardial TG content and left ve...

Context and objective: Active Cushing’s disease is associated with cognitive impairments. We hypothesized that previous hypercortisolism in patients with Cushing’s disease results in irreversible impairments in cognitive functioning. Therefore, our aim was to assess cognitive functioning after long-term cure of Cushing’s disease.Design: Cognitive assessment consisted of 11 tests, which evaluated global cognitive functioning, memory, and ex...

Background: Hypopituitarism after traumatic brain injury (TBI) is considered to be a prevalent condition, and may affect quality of life (QoL) and cognitive function. However, the prevalence of hypopituitarism differs considerably among reported studies due to differences in definitions, endocrine assessments of hypopituitarism, and confounding factors, like timing of evaluation and the severity of the trauma.Aim: To evaluate the prevalence of hypopituit...

Objective: To identify factors influencing the development of osteoarthritis during long-term control of acromegaly, focusing on disease specific parameters, growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) concentrations and duration of disease, adjusted for the well-known determinants of primary osteoarthritis.Design: Follow-up study.Methods: We studied 67 patients, with adequate biochemical control of acromegaly for ...

Objective: To evaluate the impact of the genomic deletion of exon 3 in the growth hormone receptor (d3GHR) on co-morbidities of acromegaly in a well-characterized cohort of patients with long-term remission of acromegaly.Design: Cross sectional study.Methods: The presence of the d3GHR polymorphism was assessed in 86 acromegalic patients and related to clinical outcome, i.e. anthropometric parameters, osteoarthritis, and the metabol...