Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Confirmation of permanent isolated growth hormone deficiency (IGHD) during childhood with subsequent adult transfer is important since such patients may benefit from adult GH replacement.Methods: A chance encounter with a former patient experiencing symptoms of adult GHD but untreated prompted us to review the final diagnosis and follow-up status of our GH-treated patients with IGHD between 1970 and 2000. Case records were examined for init...

Introduction: Despite extensive research into IQ scores in congenital hypothyroidism (CH) during childhood there is little information on adult outcome in terms of pragmatic measures such as educational achievement, employment, residency and relationships.Patients and methods: We present the results of a questionnaire-based study examining these outcome measures in Scottish adults with permanent CH born between 1979 and 1991. The unaffected siblings of o...

Calcitonin assays remain a key requirement for the diagnosis and monitoring of medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC). Until recently calcitonin assays were mainly competitive radioimmunoassays (RIA) but there are now more specific immunometric assays (IMA) available. Cost and staffing pressures are emcouraging routine clinical chemistry laboratories to perform easier kit methodologies rather than refer samples to specialist centres. However, endocrine tumours are known to secrete ...

Aims: The aim of this study is to evaluate sitting height (SH) and leg length (LL) in girls with Turner syndrome.Methods: Retrospective study of SH and LL SDS, using SH–LL SDS (~0 in a proportionate child) as a measure of disproportion in 76 girls with Turner syndrome. Eligible girls were aged at least 4 years, had not started recombinant GH, and had no other chronic disease. 40 girls with measurements prior to pubertal induction and at adult height...

Background: Premature infants are at risk of delayed screening for congenital hypothyroidism (CH), which may markedly affect initial treatment time and neurodevelopmental outcome. Rescreening preterm infants at four weeks (30 days) of life has been recommended to detect cases with delayed TSH elevation.Aim: To examine the performance of the CH screening programme in preterm infants aged ≤32 weeks in terms of timing of the initial Guthrie tests, and...

Insulin like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) has been shown to co-vary with renal function in a number of physiological and pathological conditions. However, this relationship and possible co-variants have not been specifically explored in untreated growth hormone deficient adults (GHDA). To examine this issue, we studied 24 GHDA subjects (14M, 10F) in the fasted state twice after obtaining consent and ethical approval. The Cockcroft and Gault equation was used to calculate creatinine...

Background: Recent consensus recommends assessment of aortic dimensions with aortic sized index (ASI) normalized for body surface area (BSA) defined as absolute aortic dimension/BSA, in girls with Turner syndrome (TS) as young as 10 years. There are currently multiple formulae for estimating BSA without agreement on a preferred method. We assess the clinical validity of each formulae as this may have implications on interpretation of ASI.Method: We calcu...

Background: GH therapy in adolescents with childhood onset GH deficiency (CO-GHD) is often necessary to prevent adult GHD syndrome and requires a re-evaluation of the GH axis on attainment of final height. Not all individuals with CO-GHD remain GH deficient and re-evaluation is required to confirm or refute adult GHD.Aim: Review the care received by young adults diagnosed with CO-GHD.Design: Retrospective review of young adults wit...

Introduction: Education of young children with type 1 diabetes mellitus is challenging. We report a collaboration between a hospital diabetology team and a young, diabetic 3D animator.Materials and methods: This resulted in a novel education tool – a series of five 3D cartoons lasting 5–6 min linked by a diabetic diary. Part 1 describes normal glucose metabolism in a healthy body. Part 2 describes diabetes and DKA. Parts 3–5 deal with: ini...

WF a 52 year old female was referred to the Hammersmith Hospital in August 2001 for further investigation of her persistently elevated fasted gut hormones (GIH) [all previously assayed at the Hammersmith Hospital]. WF was initially diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome 16 years ago. Following an exacerbation of her condition 9 years ago, fasting gut hormones were performed, which showed gross elevation of all peptides measured.The possibility of a neuroendocrine tumour was p...