Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Prolonged ingestion of licorice has been known to cause hypokalemia and resistant hypertension amongst other disturbances. This is due to glycyrrhizin that inhibits the 11-β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase enzyme type 2 which results into increased plasma cortisol levels that stimulate the mineralocorticoid receptors resulting into apparent mineralocorticoid excess.Case report: A 45-year-old woman resident in an iodine sufficient area, heav...

Objectives: Graves’ hyperthyroidism is a frequent complication of alemtuzumab treatment in MS. We present the case of an MS patient who developed clinically and biochemically overt alemtuzumab-induced Graves’ disease, remitting 6 months after treatment with ocrelizumab and methylprednisolone pulse-therapy.Methods: A 49-year-old man diagnosed with active multiple sclerosis who had undergone alemtuzumab treatment, and developed Graves’ hyper...

Cardiac paraganglioma is one of the most infrequent primary cardiac tumours, with <50 cases reported in the literature. Left atrium is the most common location. This is a case of a 57-year-old gentleman who presented with 7 year history of gradually increasing cranial perspiration, irritability, anxiety, unexplained feelings of fear, facial erythema, hypertension and atrial fibrillation. Following investigations of atrial fibrillation, a cardiac MRI scan revealed a mass be...

ContextSevere hypothyroidism and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus can both be causes for the development of pericarditis with concomitant pericardial effusion.Case illustrationWe report the case of a 23 year-old woman admitted in the ER for progressive dyspnoea, increasing fatigue and peripheral edema, associated with hepatosplenomegaly and polyadenopathy. Transthoracic echocardiogram confirmed sever...

Background: The general population trend shows an increase in the elderly. The most affected systems in the aging process are the endocrine and cardiovascular systems. The cardiovascular conditions are very important among the diseases of the elderly, the mortality due to cardiovascular diseases holding the first place in geriatrics.The aim of the study is to determine the peculiar aspect of dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate secretion dynamics in the elderl...

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), currently considered a major problem of public health, includes fatty liver alone, steatohepatitis, fibrosis, cirrhosis. Obesity increases the risk of NAFLD in the patients having BMI >30 kg/m2, where the liver involvement is a common aspect.Aim: To find non-invasive methods fro the selection of patients with risk of progression of liver disease.Materials and methods: We sel...

Obesity and the metabolic syndrome show increased morbidity and mortality, by inducing morphological and functional alterations of several organs, the liver included (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease – NAFLD). They start with minimal alterations ranging to terminal liver disease (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis – NASH – and cirrhosis).We intended to identify the histological aspects in NAFLD and to examine the correlations between the histo...

Carcinoid cardiac disease is a rare cause of intrinsic right heart valve disease with significant impact on mortality. We present the case of a young male patient (38 yrs old) complaining in the last 5 yrs of abdominal pain associated with flushing of the face that progressively worsened (up to 15 episodes/day) accompanied by diarrhoea and, in the last 2 months, by night sweats, distension of the abdomen, bilateral ankle swelling and progressive limitation in effort. Endocrine...

Introduction: Thyroid hormones are the most important factors involved in the regulation of the basal metabolic state, as well as in the oxidative metabolism. Oxidative stress accompanying hyperthyroidism is caused by increased synthesis of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and changes in the antioxidant defence system.Aim of the study: To evaluate the pro-oxidant/antioxidant status and the effect of vitamin E supplementation in damage caused by the excessiv...

It has been shown that aging is associated with ‘physiological’ alterations in both the hypothalamo–pituitary–thyroid axis and at the peripheral level such as elevation of basal TSH levels, often with normal T3 and T4 levels and decreased nuclear binding of thyroid hormones, particularly of T3. The frequency of nodular goiter and of an altered thyroid status increases with advancing age. The aim of our study was to analyze t...