Endocrine Abstracts

Primary Aldosteronism (PA) is the commonest secondary cause of hypertension. Multiple studies worldwide suggest a prevalence of approximately 10% in an unselected hypertensive cohort and up to 20% in resistant hypertension. This does not correlate with real world experience and PA remains a significantly under-recognised condition. There is a myth that the biochemical diagnosis of PA is complex and requires significant alterations to drug therapy and v...

Fractures are associated with suffering and increased mortality in patients and great costs for society. It is well established that sex steroids are important regulators of skeletal growth and bone metabolism and estrogen is known to protect against bone loss and prevent fractures. Estrogen not only protects the female skeleton, but is also associated with bone mass and fracture risk in the male skeleton. However, the use of this hormone as a therapeutic drug against bone los...

Intensive insulin regimes are widely accepted as the best way to control diabetes in children as well as adults, and most centres in the UK offer support for intensive regimes. The emphasis on intensification of diabetes management in children and young people has implications for schools because children need injections, or to use an insulin pump, during the school day, which may not have been required in bi-daily injection regimes.Diabetes teams need t...

Background: The notion of ‘normal’ is dominant in the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and their parents, because living with diabetes not only makes families different but it also makes their pursuit of ‘normal’ more visible.Aim: To develop a theoretical understanding of how children and their parents living with type 1 diabetes construct and perceive ‘normal’, and how they integrate ‘normal’ into their dail...

A better understanding of the endocrine changes following bariatric surgery becomes increasingly important as the prevalence of obesity and obesity-related diseases is rising worldwide. Bariatric surgery is the most effective therapy for severe obesity in terms of weight loss, quality of life improvement, reduction of mortality and morbidity. Gastric procedures for severe obesity can yield dramatic and long-term weight reduction with an average weight loss of two-thirds of exc...

Introduction: The diagnosis of insufficient somatotrope secretion (growth hormone deficiency or GHD) is important in children.In France, a child is considered to have a deficit if no serum GH concentrations greater than 20 mIU/l are recorded in 2 different stimulation tests. One of the tests must be ‘coupled’, i.e. combining 2 pharmacological agents.However, this 20 mIU/l threshold does not take account of the type of tes...

Introduction: Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is the most frequent cause of primary adrenal insufficiency (PAI) in infants and children. The list of genetic causes of PAI has grown extensively in recent years(1). Associated features can provide a clue to identify the underlying defect.Case presentation: A 21-year-old female was referred for endocrinological advice about pregnancy. She had been diagnosed with isolated aldosteron deficiency...

When a craniopharyngioma (CP) causes hypothalamus (HT) damage this will result in hypothalamic obesity (HO), cognitive dysfunction and increased stroke mortality. Suggested treatment when the HT is affected by a CP is subtotal resection and in some cases followed by cranial radiotherapy (CRT). In the preoperative phase, a multidisciplinary team may suggest HT sparing surgery with subtotal tumour removal. If in spite of all efforts the HT is damaged, there will be an immediate ...

Columnar cell variant is rare variant of papillary thyroid carcinoma. It occurs in both genders with the most common occurence in the middle age of life. It differs from common PTC both in morphology and especially in biological behavior. The cancer cells also commonly harbor BRAF mutation. We describe a case of young women, who came for the examination of the thyroid gland before in vitro fertilization. We found normal thyroid function tests, negative antibodies. A s...

Survival rates of childhood cancer have improved markedly and today more than 80% of those diagnosed with a pediatric malignancy will become 5-year survivors. Nevertheless, survivors exposed to cranial radiotherapy (CRT) are at particularly high risk for long-term morbidity, such as endocrine insufficiencies, metabolic complications and cardiovascular morbidity. Deficiencies of one or more anterior pituitary hormones have been described following therapeutic CRT for primary br...