Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Maternal cortisol levels increase during pregnancy and prenatal cortisol exposure have been linked to cognitive function in childhood. Higher activity of the enzyme 11β-hydroxysteroid-dehydrogenase type 2 (11β-HSD2) downregulates the amount of maternal cortisol crossing the placenta by inactivation of cortisol to cortisone. In childhood, boys perform significantly poorer in tests of intelligence than girls.Aim: To investigate associ...

Background: Language development during early childhood is considered an important marker of fetal neurodevelopment. Prenatal cortisol exposure plays a critical role in maturation of the fetal brain; however, the effect on offspring language development needs further investigation. This study aimed to evaluate the association between maternal 3rd trimester cortisol and early longitudinal offspring language development and to test whether there was sex differences in...

Introduction: Maternal thyroid function in early pregnancy is crucial for fetal neural development. Early offspring language acquisition is an important indicator of fetal neural development and a predictor of future cognitive development. We aimed to investigate how the mother’s thyroid function and the presence of thyroid autoimmunity in early pregnancy are associated with offspring’s language acquisition at the age of 12-37 months.Methods: T...

Background: Long-term, low-dose prednisolone treatment (≤5mg/day) is associated with adrenal insufficiency in >33% of patients. Nevertheless, the clinical consequences of glucocorticoid-induced adrenal insufficiency in patients receiving ongoing low-dose glucocorticoid treatment are unknown. Current clinical guidelines do not recommend routine evaluation of adrenal function during low-dose glucocorticoid treatment, and patients are not routinely instructed to increase gl...

Background: The risk and course of glucocorticoid-induced adrenal insufficiency (GIA) are unclear and current evidence is retrospective and based on small and selected study populations. However, the prevalence of glucocorticoid use is at least 3 %, which underscores the need for unbiased and prospective assessment of the prevalence and clinical consequences of GIA.Objectives: To identify biomarkers of GIA as regards diagnosis, prognosis and responsivene...

Background: Glucocorticoid-induced adrenal insufficiency (GIA) may occur after termination of long-term glucocorticoid (GC) treatment. GIA is usually diagnosed by a short-synacthen-test (SST), but peak cortisol response to SST may not validly assess normalisation of the diurnal hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)-axis. In patients with polymyalgia rheumatic (PMR) and giant cell arteritis (GCA), we report at this meeting a surprisingly low prevalence of GIA of 1.6% after cessa...

Introduction: Pharmacological glucocorticoid (GC) treatment may cause iatrogenic adrenal insufficiency (GIA), although the prevalence and clinical implications are debated. With 3% of the Danish population redeeming prescriptions of systemic GC annually, the number of patients at risk is potentially extensive. Taken together, there is an unmet need for a prospective and unbiased assessment of the GIA prevalence.Materials and Methods: The data for this re...