Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Dopamine agonists may act on prolactinoma size and secretion through additional effects on adenoma vascularity which can be visualised using Dynamic Contrast Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DCE-MRI). To investigate this 23 subjects, 5 with macroprolactinomas (prolactin (PRL) range 14631-500000mU/L), 11 with microprolactinomas (PRL range 621-4777mU/L), 7 individuals with non-lesion hyperprolactinemia and 15 normal volunteers, including 5 females on oral contrac...

Natriuretic peptides BNP and NTpro-BNP have been suggested as being useful for the diagnosis of congestive heart failure, and have been shown to have excellent negative predictive value for excluding severe systolic left ventricular dysfunction.We have shown previously that changes in thyroid function are associated with changes in concentrations of other low molecular weight molecules through the changes on renal function. Therefore, the aim of this stu...

Rationale: Octreotide is known to shrink acromegalic tumours in vivo. However, the mechanism for this is unclear. To investigate the mechanism of shrinkage we used dynamic contrast enhanced MR imaging (DCE-MRI) to visualise the vascular components within the somatotroph adenomas.Subjects & Methods: Six patients with confirmed acromegaly comprising 4 microadenomas (all male) and 2 macroadenomas (1 male, 1 female) were recruited. All patients we...

Soy phytoestrogens (PE) have been shown to improve insulin resistance and lipids but may adversely affect thyroid function.Objective: To determine the effects of soy PE on thyroid function, insulin resistance and lipid parameters in patients with subclinical hypothyroidism.Design: A randomised, double-blind, crossover study was undertaken involving 60 patients with subclinical hypothyroidism. Patients were randomly assigned to eith...