Endocrine Abstracts

A large body of evidence has accumulated to indicate that between 20–30% of survivors of acute traumatic brain injury (TBI) develop permanent pituitary dysfunction. Growth hormone (GH) deficiency is the commonest abnormality documented in most studies followed by ACTH and gonadotrophin deficiency and hyperprolactinaemia, with TSH deficiency least common. In contrast to other forms of pituitary disease, the classical hierarchy of pituitary hormone failure is not always see...

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Hypocorticotropism refers to ACTH insufficiency, which may be partial or complete, isolated or combined, genetic or acquired, pituitary or hypothalamic in origin. As a result it leads to secondary adrenal failure. Adrenal secretion of cortisol and of adrenal androgens is mainly affected; aldosterone secretion is normal. Symptoms of hypocorticotropism include progressive malaise and weight loss. Because aldosterone secretion is intact salt wasting, volume contraction and hypoka...

Although molecular research has contributed significantly to our knowledge of familial neurohypophyseal diabetes insipidus (FNDI) for more than a decade, the genetic background and the pathogenesis still is not understood fully. FNDI is, in 87 of 89 kindreds known, caused by mutations in the arginine vasopressin (AVP) gene, the pattern of which seems to be largely revealed as only few novel mutations have been identified in recent years. The mutation pattern, together with evi...