Endocrine Abstracts

55-year-old man referred to the medical assessment unit by GP with weight loss and tachycardia. His past medical history was significant for myocarditis, long-QT syndrome, out of hospital cardiac arrest and an in-situ ICD. On examination the patient was tremulous, sweaty and tachycardic but otherwise well. An ECG demonstrated sinus tachycardia and routine blood tests were unremarkable. A clinical diagnosis of thyrotoxicosis was made and confirmed biochemically with TSH<0.0...

IntroductionSarcoidosis is a multisystem disorder, characterised by the presence of non-caseating granulomas. 5–13% of cases involve the nervous system. Neurosarcoidosis carries a poor prognosis and can lead to an infiltrative process in the hypothalamo-hypophyseal region, resulting in panhypopituitarism and central diabetes insipidus (DI). These are rare but serious complications of neurosarcoidosis.Case<p class="abstext"...

Obesity commonly occurs in PCOS and contributes to increased metabolic risk and low self esteem. Advice on weight loss underpins all management strategies in the obese lady with PCOS but weight loss can remain elusive despite best efforts. We wished to determine how diet advice alone compared to metformin and/or liraglutide in our patients.Methods: We conducted an observational retrospective anonymized review of patients attending an endocrinology clinic...

Introduction: Tight metabolic control reduces the risk of microvascular complications in individuals with type 1 diabetes (T1DM). Multiple studies have shown improvements in quality of life (QOL) in children following the introduction of continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII) but metabolic outcomes have been more variable. This audit looked at metabolic parameters at long-term follow up in children and adolescents using CSII over 3 years.Methods...

Introduction: Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) carries a high risk of morbidity and mortality in undetected affected infants and has an estimated incidence of 1:15 000 based on newborn screening programmes internationally. This project aimed to identify cases and mode of diagnosis of CAH in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) to establish the case if any for screening.Methods: (i) A retrospective questionnaire was sent to all consultant paediatricians in R...

Introduction: Congenital hypothyroidism (CHT) has a reported incidence of 1:3500 in Caucasian populations. Early detection by newborn screening and appropriate L-thyroxine treatment leads to normal or near-normal neurocognitive outcome.The National Newborn screening programme (NNP) was established in Children’s University Hospital, Temple St. in 1979. This study aimed to ascertain the incidence of congenital hypothyroidism in the Republic of Ireland...

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a disease characterized by increased glucose levels, mostly either due to insulin deficiency (type 1 DM) or a decreasing ability of insulin receptor binding (type 2 DM) or both. Biomarker measurements such as fasting glucose and haemoglobin A1c are vital to detect and monitor DM. In addition to these parameters and antibody testing, insulin determination has been used for classifying different types of DM. However, the disadvantage of in...

Background: Acromegaly is associated with multiple co-morbidities and increased mortality. Surgery is the first-line intervention and remission of acromegaly can restore normal life-expectancy. Pre-operative somatostatin analogues (SSA) may increase the likelihood of remission in large invasive tumours by causing tumour shrinkage prior to surgery.Aims: To audit the management of acromegaly patients at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (ICHNT) against...

Adipose tissue (AT) plays a central role in integrating energy metabolism and glucose homeostasis. It is the major site of fatty acid storage as triglycerides and is body’s largest cholesterol pool. In AT cholesterol is mostly found in its free, non-esterified form. There is accumulating evidence that cholesterol imbalance in AT is closely associated with adipocyte dysfunction and obesity-mediated metabolic complications, including low levels of high-density lipoprotein c...

Background: Adipose tissue (AT) plays a central role in obesity-related complications such as cardiovascular diseases, insulin resistance, and type two diabetes. A comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying adipocyte formation is of both fundamental and clinical relevance. It has been reported that UPR pathway, IRE1α-XBP1 regulates hepatic lipogenesis and the role of this pathway in adipogenesis in murine adipocytes has also been confirmed. Our tea...