Endocrine Abstracts

A 68 year old retired accountant presented with loss of libido, reduced shaving frequency, obesity and gynaecomastia. His past medical history included osteoarthritis and facial acne. There was no related family history and he was taking no medications. He reported having two children.On examination the BMI was 31.7 kg/m2 and height 181 cm. He was normotensive and bilateral gynaecomastia was noted. He has reduced body hair; testicular volume w...

A 55 year old woman presented in May 2002 with symptoms of chronic fatigue, depression, intermittent and headaches. She had a history multinodular goitre and was found to have a fT4 of 15 pmol/L (N: 11–23) and TSH of 0.32 mU/L (N: 0.5–4). Medication was citalopram and thyroxine 50 ug once daily commenced by her GP. On examination her BMI was 24 kg/m2. She had scant body hair, was normotensive, and had normal visual fields on confrontation. Baseline investi...

We report the case of a seventy year-old type 2 diabetic man presenting with a fifteen year history of erectile dysfunction. He had micro- and macrovascular complications of diabetes and liver cirrhosis secondary to Hepatitis C infection. Investigations showed a high total testosterone of 32.3 nmol/l, raised SHBG at 127 nmol/l with elevated LH 20.4 IU/l and FSH 14.9 IU/l. Initial calculated free testosterone was 281 pmol/l with a bioavailable testosterone of 1.67 nmol/l, both ...

Subclinical Cushing’s syndrome (CS) has not been adequately characterised and the natural history is unknown. We report two cases of subclinical CS that presented as perforated duodenal ulcers (DU) and in both cases the disease rapidly progressed to overt CS.Case 1A 60-year-old women presented with perforated DU requiring laparotomy and repair. Abdominal CT scanning demonstrated a right adrenal mass 4.2 cm. There were no clini...

A 76 year-old man presented with back pain anorexia and cachexia. CT scan confirmed a pancreatic mass with liver metastasis. Liver biopsy confirmed a neuroendocrine tumour. Because of left ventricular failure he was unsuitable for tumour reduction therapy. He was hypercalcaemic (2.54–3.1 mmol/l), PTH and PTHrP were elevated [2.5 pmol/l (1.9–6.9), 7.1 pmol/l (<1) respectively]. A diagnosis of PTHrP secreting neuroendocrine tumour with coexisting primary hyperparat...