Endocrine Abstracts

Not another blood test !Living as a teenager with multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1.Brother and sister Joel (18 years) and Hope (14 years) Russell-Winter share their respective experiences of being diagnosed as teenagers with the rare condition multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1.They believe that the needs and experiences of teenagers are sometimes forgotten during hospital testing, consultations and treat...

Patients with Cushing's disease have high levels of circulating corticosteroids. Treatment may result in unmasking of steroid dependant conditions. We report a case of ulcerative colitis presenting after bilateral adrenalectomy.Case reportA 19 year old girl underwent bilateral adrenalectomy in November 1998 for pituitary dependant Cushing's disease. She was discharged on hydrocortisone and fludrocortisone and post operatively her c...

In late pregnancy, the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is less responsive to immune challenge(1). Circulating and brain levels of allopregnanolone (AP), a neuroactive steroid and allosteric enhancer at inhibitory GABAA receptors, increase during pregnancy(2) and AP treatment attenuates stress-induced HPA activity in male rats(3). Here we sought a role for AP in attenuated HPA axis responses to interleukin-1-beta (IL-1B) in pregnant rats. Conscious pregnant (day 21) an...

Orexins are hypothalamic peptides known to stimulate food intake. Recently, orexins have been shown to activate the HPA axis at a central level1. We have previously shown that during late pregnancy the responsiveness of the HPA axis to a range of stressors is attenuated and suggested that the corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) neurones or pathways impinging on them are less responsive2. If the CRH neurones themselves are less responsive, they should al...

IntroductionThe secretion of multiple hormones occurs in both a circadian and an ultradian manner. Both animal and human studies have shown that cortisol has an ultradian rhythm. Variations in ultradian cortisol secretion may explain inter-individual variation in the stress response.ObjectiveWe have developed an automated blood sampling system (ABS) that allows undisturbed sampling of blood, thus reducing str...

NPY acts centrally to stimulate appetite and the HPA axis. During late pregnancy enhanced inhibition of parvocellular paraventricular nucleus (pPVN) corticotrophin releasing hormone (CRH)/ arginine vasopressin (AVP) neurones reduces HPA-axis stress responses1,2. We investigated activation of hypothalamic neurones regulating HPA responses to NPY, and a role for endogenous opioids in HPA hyporesponsiveness in late pregnancy.Pregnant (d21) and vi...

Background: Poorly differentiated neuroendocrine carcinoma (NEC) is an aggressive malignancy comprising both pulmonary and extrapulmonary primary sites. NEC includes both small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC), as well as other neuroendocrine carcinomas arising from any primary organ. The optimal systemic therapy beyond first line platinum and etoposide is not established. There is a critical need to improve upon the median survival in th...