Endocrine Abstracts

After suffering three spontaneous pneumothoraces, Mr A was due to have definitive treatment in the form of video-assisted thoracoscopy and pleurodesis. Soon after ‘induction of anaesthesia’ he developed severe hypertension; 130/80 →300/220 associated with global high take off and ST elevation on the ECG. Labetol was given i.v. after which the blood pressure became unrecordable and an EMD cardiac arrest ensued. Three cycles of cardiac massage and two boluses of ...

We describe the case of two patients who presented with non-mechanical bowel obstruction as a consequence of an underlying, undiagnosed Phaeochromocytoma. The first patient was referred in to the surgical team by his GP with signs and symptoms of small bowel obstruction. He described abdominal pain, distension and vomiting and had not opened his bowels for a week. The X-ray supported the clinical diagnosis and he went on to have an abdominal CT scan. The scan did not identify ...

Iodine deficiency may lead to reduced thyroid hormone production and ultimately hypothyroidism. The UK has previously been considered to be iodine sufficient, however recent evidence suggests the UK may be iodine deficient. Iodine status can be assessed in several ways, including measurement of urinary iodine excretion, for which inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) is considered the gold standard method.An ICP-MS method for determinatio...

Obesity (excess adipose tissue generated by hypertrophy and hyperplasia) predisposes to poor health. Adipogenesis (hyperplasia) involves the differentiation of adherent preadipocytes into non-adherent adipocytes and is accompanied by alterations to the extracellular matrix of which hyaluronan (HA) is a component. Used in vitro to promote lineage specific differentiation, little is known of HA’s role in adipogenesis. We hypothesise that HA modifications must occur d...

Introduction: The effects of mild subclinical hypothyroidism (SH; TSH <10 mU/l) on metabolic outcomes are unclear. This may relate to differences in aetiology, including thyroid autoimmunity or genetic factors such as TSH-receptor mutations (TSHR-M) and FOXE1 polyalanine tract length (FOXE1–PTL) polymorphisms, which are associated with altered thyroid function. We hypothesised that the metabolic manifestations of SH may depend upon its aetiology.<p class="abstext"...

The role of the thyrotropin receptor (TSHR) in bone is unclear. TSHR-deficient mice have low bone mineral density (BMD) and focal osteosclerosis despite normal thyroid hormones (suggesting TSHR function, in bone, is important). Subclinical hypothyroidism (SH) has various aetiologies including thyroid autoimmunity (TA) and inactivating TSHR mutations (TSHR-M). In TSHR-deficiency & TSH-M elevated TSH compensates for reduced TSHR function, whereas in TA it compensates for red...