Endocrine Abstracts

Measurement of anti-thyroglobulin (TgAb) predicts interference in thyroblobulin (Tg) assays and is a tumour marker for differentiated thyroid cancer (dtc). However, there is poor concordance between methods. This is attributed to the nature of TgAb, the method and cut-off used. We have assessed concordance between three TgAb assays and investigated the cause of discordant results. TgAb was measured in sera from 606 different patients being treated for dtc using the Abbott Arch...

A 24-year-old Pakistani woman presented one day after returning from a 6-week holiday in Pakistan with a 3-day history of generalised weakness, difficulty in walking and left flank pain. She was known to have mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD). Clinically she was pyrexial and had generalised muscular weakness (power 3/5), and hypotonia. Biochemically, she was found to have hypokalaemia (1.8 mmol/l), raised serum urea (8.1 mmol/l), and creatinine (160 μmol/l), high ESR...

A 64-year-old morbidly obese female was admitted with a history of bilateral lower leg ulceration, chronic venous insufficiency and biventricular cardiac failure. There was no relevant family history. She was commenced on furosemide and prophylactic enoxaparin. Biochemical investigations showed persistently elevated serum potassium concentrations (5.7 to 8.2 mmol/L) and low sodium levels (111 to 131 mmol/L). She had not been prescribed non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents, a...