Endocrine Abstracts

Thyroglobulin (Tg) is a tumoral marker of differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC). Iterative Tg assays are then mandatory for their follow-up. The maximum imprecision of any Tg measurement should be <5%. However, it is unlikely that current Tg assays can maintain such tight precision over the 6–12 months time period used for monitoring patients with DTC. This precision can be overcome by measuring archived frozen samples from the patient in the same run as the current spe...

The adrenal function of children is investigated similarly to adults’ using at rest (basal) and after testing serum cortisol concentration ((F)). di Iorgi et al. (JCEM 95:2132) showed a good diagnostic accuracy of glucagon testing investigating (F) increase. We retrospectively addressed the relevance of using, in children with short stature tested for GH deficiency, 1/ the normal reference range of our assay for basal (F) and 2/ the threshold provided by di Iorgi et al. o...

Background and aim: Parathyroid hormone (PTH) measurement is critical to evaluate bone status in patients with chronic renal failure as adynamic bone (AB) and bone with a high turnover (HTB) require different therapeutic options. Since the 2nd generation PTH assays recognise a non 1–84 PTH fragment in addition to the intact 1–84 PTH, a new assay defined as 3rd generation has been commercialised. The aim of this study was to evaluate, in dialysed patients, the rate of...

We investigated whether urinary cortisol metabolites could help to diagnose patients with cortisol oversecretion either with benign adrenal or corticotroph tumours.Liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometric assay (LC-MSMS) of cortisol (F)m, cortisone, tetra-hydrocortisol (THF), allo-THF, tetra-hydrocortisone (THE), α-cortol, β-cortol, α-cortolone, α-cortolone and internal standard 6-α-methylprednisolone were assayed after de...

Background: In-patients inadequate food intake can worsen the prevalence and degree of malnutrition.Patients and methods: A “one day” questionnaire was used in medicine (M-Dpts) geriatric (G-Dpts) and surgery (S-Dpts) departments of a university hospital to: i) evaluate nutritional status with the Detky score, ii) quantify food intake, iii) understand the reasons of non-consumption of in-patients (n 286, 46 & 104 in M-, G- & S-Dpts, res...