Endocrine Abstracts

A 22 year old student sought medical attention with a month's complaint of intermittent tingling and spasms in his hands and in the last week more difficulty with phonation. He had previously been fit and active except in his neonatal period. He was a 6 weeks premature 'blue baby' and was transfused 6 times in his first week of life and received anti-D antibodies. He had mild asthma from age 2 but this no longer troubles him. He had been an otherwise fit student playing footba...

PCOS has major long-term health implications that are closely linked to the Metabolic Syndrome. The prevalence of the Metabolic Syndrome is high among migrant and indigenous South Asian populations. We have previously demonstrated that migrant South Asians with PCOS have a greater degree of insulin resistance than white Europeans with PCOS. As there is a paucity of data on PCOS among indigenous South Asian populations, consecutive consenting anovular PCOS subjects (80) and age...

Background: PCO is more prevalent among SA than C and IR is central to its pathogenesis; whilst Type 2 diabetes (DM) is commoner in SA. We compared the phenotype and IR in South Asian and Caucasians with PCOS.Methods: Comparison of consecutive anovular PCOS; 47 SA and 36 Caucasians and their age and weight matched controls (11 SA and 22 Cs).Results: SA presented earlier (age 26 plus/minus 4 v 30.1 plus/minus 5, p = 0.005). BMI (24....

Introduction: The 1 μg low dose short Synacthen tests (LDSST) and the glucagon stimulation tests (GST) have been suggested to be safer alternatives to the insulin induced hypoglycaemia stress test. The aim of this study was to compare the peak plasma cortisol concentration in response to a LDSST followed 60 min later by a GST in children undergoing investigation for short stature.Methods: We retrospectively studied 38 patients (19 female, 19 male) w...

Many patients with Turner's and Klinefelter's syndromes develop osteoporosis. We present the cases of three patients with osteoporosis and chromosomal abnormalities.Case 1: A 65 year old women requested evaluation of osteoporosis because of multiple fractures of hip, elbow and vertebrae. She was kyphoscoliotic, having lost 6 cm from her peak height o 1.76 m. Aged 12 she was told that she lacked female reproductive organs and underwent surgery including v...

Background: Type 1 pseudohypoaldosteronism (PHA) is characterised by resistance to aldosterone action, resulting in salt wasting, hyperkalaemia and metabolic acidosis in the neonatal period. Type 1 PHA can be classified as Renal PHA (autosomal dominant (AD)), and the more severe Multiple target organ defect / systemic PHA (autosomal recessive (AR)). The aim of this study was to ascertain the incidence of PHA, and characterise mode of presentation, management and clinical outco...