Endocrine Abstracts

Surgery is the most effective way of treating morbid obesity. The laparoscopic gastric bypass (Roux en-Y) is the preferred bariatric surgical procedure performed at our hospital. This combines restriction of intake with a profound sensation of early satiety.Ideally, multi-disciplinary team involvement (including psychological assessment), over a period of at least six months, is a prerequisite for bariatric surgery referral. The more psychotherapeutic wo...

Introduction: Daily administration of Pegvisomant normalizes IGF1 levels >71% of acromegalics (1). Few studies have assessed the efficacy of weekly administration. We assessed the efficacy of weekly pegvisomant for 12 months, after withdrawal of long-acting somatostatin analogs (SSA) in acromegalics previously controlled on combination therapy.Design: Fifteen subjects (8 males), age 58 (35–80) (median (range)) years on combination therapy of hig...

Introduction: The management of diabetic gastroparesis resistant to medical therapy is very difficult – the most severely affected patients often spend many days as hospital inpatients with intractable nausea and vomiting and consequent dehydration, leading to a marked reduction in quality of life. Recently, gastric pacing (also known as gastric electrical stimulation (GES)) has been tried in these patients as a means of correcting the physiological deficit. It has shown ...

Background: We have previously demonstrated that the natriuretic peptides BNP and NT-proBNP rise with ascent to high altitude (HA). Both peptides are classically markers of congestive cardiac failure but have also recently been found to be associated with pulmonary hypertension at sea-level (SL). As pulmonary hypertension is central to the risk of high altitude pulmonary oedema we aimed to establish if there was any association between high pulmonary artery systolic pressure (...

Introduction: Clinical symptoms in craniopharyngioma have been repeatedly described in the literature, but few studies have addressed the issue of acute-onset symptoms in children or adults. Refinements of diagnostic procedures and altered scanning routines over the last two decades may in theory have affected patterns of clinical presentation.Objective: To study the clinical phenotype of patients with newly diagnosed craniopharyngioma, with focus on var...

Background and aims: Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus affects a growing number of people allover the world. It is associated with serious complications. Several studies have shown that it is possible to prevent and minimize type 2 diabetes complications if it is treated appropriately over time. In our Hospital there is, since 1998, an outpatient clinics of diabetes. This study aimed to determine the quality of care provided to diabetic patients in our institution.<p class="abstext...

Background and aims: Thyroid nodular disease (TND) is a common condition in the general population. Malignant nodules occur in 5% of patients with thyroid nodules. Fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) is considered to be the most reliable method of differentiating benign and malignant thyroid nodules. The purpose of this study was to assess the accuracy of FNABs performed in our Hospital.Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patient...

Introduction: Positron emission tomography (PET) using 6-[F-18]fluoro-L-dihydroxyphenylalanine (18F-DOPA) has an excellent sensitivity to detect carcinoid tumor lesions. 18F-DOPA-tumor uptake and the levels of biochemical tumor markers are mediated by tumor endocrine metabolic activity. Therefore we evaluated whether total 18F-DOPA-tumor uptake on PET, defined as the whole-body metabolic burden (WBMTB) reflects tumor load per pat...

Toxic adenomas (TA) and toxic multinodular goiters (TMNG) are frequent causes of hyperthyroidism in Galicia, an endemic goiter area. In some European countries, 40–80% of toxic goiters are caused by TSH receptor (TSHr) and Gs alfa-subunit (Gsa) mutations that activate cAMP pathway.Aims: To study 1) the prevalence of TSHr and Gsa mutations in TMNG and TA from Galicia, 2) the clonality of sequenced samples, 3) the constitutive activity of the identifi...

IntroductionPrimary Hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) results from one or more parathyroid glands hyperfunction. It is recommended that the preoperative location of the parathyroid lesion be performed with cervical ultrasonography and sestamibi-scintigraphy. Recently 4-Dimensional Computed Tomography (4D-CT) has revealed anatomic, morphologic and functional precision for detecting those lesions, either for typical or ectopic location. This study evaluates the d...