Endocrine Abstracts

Pheochromocytoma is a rare tumor made up of chromaffin cells from the adrenal medulla that secrete catecholamines. It can occur at any age, with a peak incidence between the fourth and fifth decade of life, and only 10% of cases occur in children. The majority of cases are sporadic and approximately 10% are malignant. The existence of familial syndrome, multiple or extra adrenal tumors is more common at younger ages. The clinic is very variable, and hypertension (HTA) is the m...

Introduction: MODYs are being identified more frequently but the rarity of some types still precludes in-dept knowledge of their natural course of disease. One of this rare forms is MODY 5, the result of a mutation on the hepatocyte nuclear factor 1 beta (HNF-1B) gene that associates with genitourinary and pancreatic malformations/dysfunction.Case report: A 24-year-old female was referred to the Endocrinology clinic due to hyperglycaemia identified on pr...

Introduction: Erectile dysfunction (ED) is highly prevalent and negatively impacts the patient’s and the partner’s quality of life. It is a well-established red flag for ongoing neuro-vascular disease and a predictor of coronary, cerebral and peripheral arterial disease (PAD). Our aim was to document how often do clinicians investigate ED and use it as a predictor of neuro-vascular pathology to trigger a thorough revision of cardiovascular risk factors (CVRF). This a...

Functional hypogonadism has been described in association with acute severe medical or surgical illness, subacute recovery and chronic disease. We present a case of transitory hypogonadism manifested during a peri-surgical period. A 42-year-old patient was sent to the endocrinology clinic due to hypertension and a solitary adrenal mass. He was treated with bisoprolol and telmisartan, that he maintains until today. The evaluation favoured non-functional adenoma but during the f...

Introduction: Amiodarone is a well-established antiarrhythmic drug frequently used in tachyarrhythmias. Side effects include hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism. Extreme cases such as myxedematous and thyrotoxic crisis are very uncommon. Here we report one case of each of these presentations.Case Report no.1: A 73-year-old woman with history of atrial fibrillation under treatment with amiodarone presented to the emergency department with headache, nausea ...

Graves’ disease is the most common cause of hyperthyroidism in non-endemic areas and antithyroid drugs are the preferred first-line therapy in many centers. The aim of this retrospective investigation was to verify the association of remission with the achievement of normal TSH and free-T4 during the first 18 months of treatment and to compare it with negative anti-TSH-receptor antibodies at 18 months, a marker with known prognostic value. All patients diagnosed with Grav...

Background: Struma ovarii (SO) is the presence of thyroid tissue as a major cellular component in an ovarian tumour.Case report: A 35-year-old, Caucasian female, asymptomatic and with normal physical examination was submitted to left oophorectomy due to an ovarian mass (8.2×7.0×6.0 cm) detected in routine pelvic examination. Her mother also had history of oophorectomy for an ovarian tumour and partial thyroidectomy for benign thyroid nodule. Th...

Introduction: Regarding thyroid nodules, in case of follicular lesion of undetermined significance (FLUS), performing repeat fine-needle aspiration (FNA) is a common follow-up strategy. It has been suggested that a waiting period of at least 3 months between FNAs would increase the diagnostic yield. Our study aims to clarify the optimal time for repeat FNA in case of an initial FLUS result.Methods: We identified retrospectively all thyroid FNA FLUS resul...

Introduction: Cryptorchidism is the most common abnormality of male sexual development. Approximately 5% of cases of cryptorchidism are associated with vanishing testes syndrome. This rare condition occurs when an initially normal testicle that existed in fetal life subsequently atrophies. Affected patients usually have normal male external genitalia and hypergonadotropic hypogonadism. This disease is usually diagnosed in early childhood allowing for normal sexual development ...

Background: Agranulocytosis is rare and may develop in 0.2–0.5% patients using antithyroid drug therapy (ATD). We report on a patient who developed febrile neutropenia two weeks after starting treatment with methimazole.Case Report: A 74-year-old female, with no relevant medical history, was diagnosed with Graves disease and treated with methimazole (30 mg/day). Three weeks after starting therapy she presented to the emergency department with compla...