Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: As an alternative to cortisol assays in the serum or saliva to diagnose hypercorticisme we evaluated the ability of a commercial cortisol assay to assess capillary blood cortisol concentrations using routine procedures.Methods: Capillary blood was obtained using a device used by diabetics to routinely assess capillary glucose levels and deposited on Schleicher-Scheull 903 blotter paper (routinely used for neonatal diagnosis of hypothyroidis...

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...