Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Testosterone deficiency is common in obesity and in type 2 diabetes mellitus. It is hypothesised that the expanded adipose pool, which is the major source of aromatase in men, depletes testosterone levels by excess conversion to estradiol. Individuals with either the GG rs2470152 polymorphism in intron 1 or a high number of TTTA repeats in intron 4 of CYP19 are known to have greater aromatase activity with demonstrable effects upon plasma estradiol and osteoporosis...

Background: Hyponatraemia is the commonest electrolyte abnormality in clinical practice, and may be a biochemical manifestation of different diseases including malignancy. About 14% of hyponatremia in medical inpatients is due to underlying tumour related conditions.We present a case of 68 years widow who was referred by her General Practioner with 3 weeks history of nausea, occasional vomiting, confusion, increased urinary frequency, and urinary inconti...

Background: Hyponatraemia is the commonest electrolyte abnormality in clinical practice, and may be a biochemical manifestation of different diseases including malignancy. Uterine neuroendocrine tumours causing hyponatraemia are rare and can cause a diagnostic challenge.We present a case of 68 years widow who presented with 3 weeks history of nausea, occasional vomiting, confusion, increased urinary frequency, urinary incontinence, chronic constipation, ...

Background: Previously, we have demonstrated highly potent knockdown of POMC mRNA and significant reduction in secreted ACTH using siRNA, both in vitro and in vivo. Highly efficient delivery of siRNA to a target tissue is of critical importance for any therapeutic approach. Here we assess the suitability of a pH-sensitive polymer, PMPC-PDPA polymersomes encapsulating siRNA, as a novel delivery system as these have potential for tissue-directed delivery by ...

Aims/hypothesis: Adrenal incidentaloma (AI) are very common, but optimal management of patients with AI and low-grade excess cortisol secretion is not established. Uncontrolled studies reporting outcomes of adrenalectomy suggest improvements in cardiovascular risk, but all are subject to selection bias, and it is unclear if benefits are due to removal of excess cortisol. We reasoned that short-term use of mifepristone, a rapidly-acting glucocorticoid receptor (GR) antagonist, ...

Background: The Endocrine Society clinical practice guidelines suggest use of the 1 mg overnight dexamethasone suppression test (ONDST) to screen for cortisol excess in patients with adrenal incidentalomas, followed by the 48-h, 2 mg/day, low-dose dexamethasone-suppression test (LDDST), to confirm a positive result. Visceral fat accumulates in cortisol-excess and accounts for increased cardiovascular risk. In this study, we investigate whether the LDDST offers additional infor...

Background: Cortisol is an essential stress hormone and deficient patients suffering a systemic inflammatory response (SIR) will rapidly die if not replaced. However, controversy remains on the definition for a normal adrenal response in critically ill patients. We investigated cortisol status in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG), surgery frequently associated with a SIR, varying in severity from sub-clinical, to life-threatening....

The intraperitoneal environment of the ovarian surface epithelium (OSE) has an oxygen (O2) tension of 5–12%. This could impact cellular events leading to ovulation. Furthermore, ovarian cancers arising from the OSE (∼80–90% of ovarian malignancies) are likely to experience increased hypoxia due to the relatively poor vascularisation of solid tumours.Using 1%, 5% or 20% O2, we measured the expression of HSD11B1, COX-2...

Aim: We had noted that certain patients with metastatic mid-gut carcinoid had subcutaneous nodules in the gluteal region. This prompted us to assess this in more detail as the concern was whether these represented metastases.Method: A cross-sectional study was designed to assess CT scans of 56 patients with metastatic mid gut carcinoid attending the Neuroendocrine Tumour Clinic. These were analysed by two independent radiologists blinded as to the treatm...

Introduction: Although current medical therapies for acromegaly are highly effective, 30% of patients are left with inadequately controlled growth hormone (GH) levels. To investigate a novel therapeutic strategy we have used RNA interference (RNAi) to target GH coding and promoter sequences in vitro and assessed the effect on gene expression and DNA methylation.Method: A careful bioinformatics approach revealed only one area in the coding sequence...