Endocrine Abstracts

A 53 year old female weighing 117 kg was thought to be slightly cushingoid by her GP who checked a morning cortisol. This was surprisingly undetectable (<28nM) on 13th June 2022. The patient was urgently referred for a medical opinion. A repeat cortisol in A&E was 29nM with an undetectable ACTH. Given the lack of clinical features of adrenal failure, further history was obtained. The patient appeared well on examination, and denied any inhaled, oral/ topical steroid us...

A 26-year-old woman presented to the Endocrine clinic with features of Cushing’s syndrome (CS). Investigations revealed a non-suppressible cortisol in low dose Dexamethasone suppression test with a suppressed ACTH, and two positive 24-hour urine cortisol collections, indicating CS. CT imaging revealed a left adrenal adenoma of 3.4 cm. Following a left adrenalectomy, she was discharged on once daily Prednisolone 3 mg. She was well for a year except for one occasion where s...

Case history: A 74 years old gentleman with no medical illness presented with loss of consciousness in March 2018. CT head did not show acute cortical infarct but there was florid symmetrical calcification involving the basal ganglia, thalami, cerebellar lobes and subcortical white matter within the parietal-occipital lobes bilaterally. Fahr’s disease was suspected and an outpatient MRI was requested.Investigation and Results: 2 weeks later, a routi...

Case history: A 54-year-old lady was diagnosed with primary hypoparathyroidism in 2005, after being referred by her Rheumatologist as her father and brother had familial hypoparathyroidism and sensorineural deafness. She was followed up in endocrine clinic for management of primary hypoparathyroidism. Her hypocalcaemia is well managed with calcium supplementation, with no specific symptoms of hypocalcaemia. She has recurrent urinary tract infections with known borderline chron...

Prednisolone is widely prescribed in the UK, whereas prednisone is used instead for the same indications in the United States. Both have utility as anti-inflammatory agents and for use as glucocorticoid replacement therapy at lower doses. Oral prednisone is converted to prednisolone by first pass hepatic metabolism by 11 beta HSD-1. This study was undertaken to compare the bioavailability of prednisone against prednisolone. To determine the conversion of prednisone to predniso...

A 54-year-old man with a recurrent non-functioning pituitary gonadotroph adenoma previously treated with transphenoidal surgery (TSS) in 2015, presented to Charing Cross hospital for repeat transsphenoidal surgery in May 2022. Since his initial surgery, he remained on Levothyroxine 50 μg once daily only. There was no evidence of adrenal insufficiency (0900 h cortisol 333 nmol/l at day 6 following initial TSS). In February 2022, his electrolytes, FSH, LH, testosterone, pro...

Generous glucocorticoid (GC) replacement following pituitary or adrenal surgery for Cushing’s can result in persistent suppression of the pituitary corticotrophs, evidenced by poor short synacthen test (SST) responses. Dose reduction can result in increased fatigue so patients tend to prefer to remain on higher doses. Long-term GC therapy is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. We present two cases where GC therapy was successfully weaned through a gradual t...

Background: Adrenal Insufficiency (AI) is a life-threatening disorder caused by dysfunction of the adrenal axis (primary AI) or of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (secondary AI). Both result in glucocorticoid deficiency, requiring life-long replacement, with additional mineralocorticoid replacement required in primary AI. However, accurately reproducing the endogenous circadian and ultradian rhythm of cortisol secretion is challenging. Current Endocrin...

A 44 year old gentleman presented to his local hospital with a two week history of fevers and rigors. Blood cultures were positive for Streptococcus oralis, and an echocardiogram confirmed new diagnosis of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) complicated by mitral valve infective endocarditis (IE). Unfortunately, this required a mechanical mitral valve replacement (MVR) and he started warfarin (INR target 2.5-3.5). During his admission, he reported chronic headaches. An MRI brain...

A 44-year-old gentleman presented to the Emergency Department with a 2-week history of fever and rigors. Past medical history was unremarkable other than an earlier diagnosis of hypertension. He was noted to have new onset atrial fibrillation with rapid ventricular response; a diagnosis of hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM) was made on echocardiography. In addition, a vegetation was identified on the mitral valve. Treatment for infective endocarditis (Streptoco...