Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: The presence of heterophilic antibodies resulting in assay interference could lead to falsely high or low values in biochemical investigations. We present a case of a 5-year-old girl who had persistently high level of TSH despite Levothyroxine treatment.History: A five-year girl was found to have an elevated plasma TSH level (24.29 mU/L) with normal Free T4 (both measured using Abbott Alinity immunoassay) w...

Introduction: Bedside blood ketone measurement has often been used in the management of diabetic ketoacidosis. However there is no available data on its reliability in the evaluation of hypoglycaemia in children. We aimed to assess the reliability of bedside ketones (beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB)) in the evaluation of hypoglycaemia in children.Methods: We collected data on 20 children who had paired measurement of bedside and lab BHB at the end of a control...

Background: Up to 50% of children treated with inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) have biochemical evidence of adrenal insufficiency (AI). Episodes of adrenal crisis (AC) are extremely rare.To address the discordance between the prevalence of biochemical AI and AC, we re-examined the biochemical definition of AI during ICS therapy. We then investigated the utility of early morning salivary cortisol (EMSC) and cortisone (EMSCn) for the identification of patien...

Cushing’s disease (CD) is rare in childhood. There are well described cohorts of patients with classical features. However, given the rarity of CD, we feel it is valuable to share lessons learnt from the treatment of atypical cases.Case 1: Thirteen-year-old male presented with Cushingoid features. Investigation indicated ACTH excess: 0900 h ACTH 20 pmol/l per cortisol 798 nmol/l; midnight cortisol 724 nmol/l. MRI demonstrated a pituitary macroadenom...