Endocrine Abstracts

Pituitary-dependent Cushing’s is a rare disease of unknown aetiology that is prone to relapse and damaging to quality of life even in remission. About one half of all patients subjected to primary pituitary surgery are not cured in the long term even in the best hands, and as the routine use of adjuvant radiotherapy has become an increasingly unattractive proposition to clinicians striving to spare their patients’ future complications, pharmacotherapeutic alternative...

Gender dysphoria is a relatively common and incurable condition associated with infertility, social isolation, divorce and a high risk of substance abuse, mental disorder and suicide. Treatment involves often uncomfortable psychiatric interventions, lifelong medication and mutilating surgery.If we, as endocrinologists and advocates for this unfortunate group of people, hide behind the strictly pharmacotherapeutic dictate to 'first do no harm', we may wel...

Cranial Diabetes Insipidus is a potentially fatal disorder if not diagnosed and treated appropriately. The diagnosis can either be made in the outpatient setting, whereby the main differential diagnosis is Primary Polydipsia (PP), or during a hospital admission, where patients can be prfoondly unwell, dehydrated and hypernatraemic. In the ouptatient setting, it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between DI and PP, but usually severe Cranial DI is clinically and biochemi...

Cranial Diabetes Insipidus is a potentially fatal disorder if not diagnosed and treated appropriately. The diagnosis can either be made in the outpatient setting, whereby the main differential diagnosis is Primary Polydipsia (PP), or during a hospital admission, where patients can be prfoondly unwell, dehydrated and hypernatraemic. In the ouptatient setting, it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between DI and PP, but usually severe Cranial DI is clinically and biochemi...

Background: Incidentally discovered pituitary lesions are a common problem in the endocrinology clinic due to increased access to detailed brain imaging. The challenge for endocrinologists is to determine which pituitary lesions are clinically significant and which are truly incidental. Pituitary micro-adenomas have been found at autopsy in 1.5–27% of subjects, whilst population-based radiological studies report small pituitary lesions in ~10%. It is difficult to produce ...

A 48-year-old gentleman was admitted to AMU overnight in January’12 from eye casualty with weeks of worsening visual disturbances followed by rapid deterioration – complete loss of vision in the right eye and a temporal hemianopia on the left side but no headache.Urgent hormone profile revealed elevated prolactin 53 988 mU/l, low testosterone of 3.3, SHBG 22, LH 2, FSH 3.1, IGF1 292, satisfactory SST (0 min cortisol 213 with ACTH 10 and 30 min ...

Background: The exponential growth of social media over the last decade has provided new, diverse and accessible ways in which people can share and receive information. Its rapid rise has attracted researchers and professionals of various disciplines, aiming to capitalise on this relatively new phenomenon. In this qualitative study we utilised social media to conduct research on psychosocial aspect of acromegaly. Facebook currently has 845 million users. Acromegaly, with a pre...

A 35 year-old lady presented with classical acromegaly. Headache was a significant feature of her presentation. An oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) confirmed acromegaly, with growth hormone (GH) levels of 21.6, 21.5, 27.0, 25.0 and 24.7 mU/l at 0, 30, 60, 90 and 120 minutes respectively. A large pituitary tumour invading the left cavernous sinus was found. Trans-sphenoidal hypophysectomy lowered GH levels but did not provide biochemical cure (10.2, 7.2, 8.1, 9.6, 9.3 mU/l). ...

Pseudohypoparathyroidism during pregnancy can lead to challenging calcium fluctuations and can lead to maternal and foetal morbidity. There are limited case reports and no established management guidelines. Maintaining calcium level in healthy range during pregnancy is required to minimise the risks of associated complications. We report a case of Pseudohypoparathyroidism type 1a in 30 year old lady, who was initially referred to us by her general physician with calcium, of 1....

We conducted a prospective audit of triple therapy in type 2 patients (Dec01 to Dec02). 51 patients on maximal Metformin and sulphonylurea had a Glitazone added. 11 patients were lost to follow up. The remaining 40 patients, 23 Male, 17 Female, mean age 51years (35-66), diabetes mean duration 8.5 years (2-16) had a mean BMI of 33.8 (range 22-47). Mean baselineHbA1C was 9.6% (7.3-12.3%).Parameters measured were blood pressure, height, weight BMI, full blo...