Endocrine Abstracts

Case presentation: A 40-year-old Caribbean woman presented with sudden onset palpitations. She described 3 months of progressive shortness of breath, non-productive cough and 7kg weight loss. She denied chest pain, fevers or night sweats, but reported increased stool frequency, gritty eyes, and occasional visual blurring. She appeared cachectic and had a fine tremor, left eye proptosis and a visible pulsatile goitre. She was afebrile, tachypnoeic, hypoxic, hypotensive with fas...

Case History: A 23-year-old Bengali woman with a 2-year history of Graves’ disease presented to the endocrine day unit with a widespread, pruritic, vasculitic-looking rash. She was treated with Carbimazole since diagnosis but was poorly compliant. One month prior to presentation, her Carbimazole dose was increased from 20 mg daily to 60 mg daily, as she remained biochemically thyrotoxic (Free T4 79.9 pmol/l, T3 34.8 pmol/l and TSH < 0.01 mU/l). The rash started on her lower...

Case history: A 35-year-old woman with known hypertriglyceridaemia presented with a one day history of abdominal pain, vomiting and fever. She was 14 weeks pregnant having conceived spontaneously following a period of infertility. She had discontinued her lipid-lowering medication and was managed with diet alone. On examination, she was pyrexial, tachycardic (HR=100 bpm), normotensive (BP=111/71 mmHg), oxygen saturation was 96% on air and she had a tender distended abdomen. A ...

Background: Endocrine emergencies such as hyponatraemia and hypercalcaemia commonly present during unselected medical on-call. However, in our hospital a questionnaire survey of trainees revealed lack of confidence and preparedness in managing endocrine emergencies. 18 trainees responded (12 Foundation Year 1 (FY1), 1 Foundation Year 2 (FY2), 5 Core Medical trainees (CT1) reporting lack of confidence and preparedness in managing endocrine emergencies. 76.92% of FY1 doctors fel...

Background: Patients taking hydrocortisone replacement for primary or secondary adrenal failure require individual adjustment of their dose. Previous observations in our department suggest that total serum cortisol levels achieved following an afternoon or evening dose of 5 mg hydrocortisone are almost as high as those that result from a 10 mg dose in the early morning; and that the ‘area under the cortisol curve’ (AUC) generated by an evening 5 mg dose is broader th...

Background: In May 2010 a dedicated Consultant-delivered Endocrine Telephone Advice Clinic (ETAC) was launched at St Bartholomew’s Hospital as a direct point of access for primary care doctors to obtain endocrine advice about new patients. The proposed benefits of this clinic were to: 1. Reduce unnecessary clinic attendances that could be managed in primary care. 2. Allow for more detailed and less hurried discussions of non-urgent cases than was possible via the on-call ...

Introduction: The investigation and management of large adrenal lesions varies widely. It is appropriate to have a low threshold for surgical removal of large adrenal lesions with the possible exception of stable adrenomyelipomata. 18F-FDG PET is increasingly used as an imaging technique to assess these lesions. We would like to highlight the potential benefits and pitfalls of using 18F-FDG PET as part of the diagnostic pathway.Method: Since 2008, 18F-FD...

Introduction and Objectives: Guidelines are available for the investigation of thyroid nodules. These include a general agreement that patients with abnormal thyroid function tests (TFTs) do not need routine ultrasound (US) assessment. Thyroid US is a common imaging request made by General Practitioners (GPs). This audit was devised to determine the range of clinical indications for GP thyroid US and the frequency with which TFTs are assessed by the GP prior to requesting the ...

Introduction: Regimens for pre-operative α and β-blockade for patients with secretory phaeochromocytomas/paragangliomas vary widely between centres. The worldwide lack of availability of intravenous phenoxybenzamine (Goldshield) has removed a useful tool in the management of phaeochromocytoma crisis and has necessitated a change in our institution’s routine pre-operative strategy. We compare pre, peri and post-operative surrogate measures of blockade in a cohort...

Case: A 22 year-old female student presented with a history of recurrent pancreatitis since 2007. The most common causes of pancreatitis, including drugs, gallstones, corticosteroids, excess alcohol and hypertriglyceridaemia were excluded. She was noted to have elevated serum calcium, which was considered to be the cause of her pancreatitis, with a detectable serum PTH level. An initial diagnosis of primary hyperparathyroidism was made. However, two neck explorations failed to...