Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Improvement of health related quality of life (QoL) is one of the main goals defined by the WHO and besides reduction of mortality and morbidity an important objective for health outcomes. In chronic endocrine diseases, QoL often remains impaired despite cure or remission of the disease. In quantitative analyses, factors such as age, gender, BMI and depression, are associated with reduced QoL. However, aspects of social interaction and more complex individual con...

Objective: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a hallmark of the metabolic syndrome and has been shown to be an independent predictor of cardiovascular mortality. Although glucocorticoids and growth hormone are known to be implicated in its pathophysiology, it has only rarely been investigated in the context of patients with pituitary insufficiency or former cortisol excess.Design: Case-control study, including patients with biochemically control...

Neuroimaging techniques have improved over the last years; hence an “empty sella” is more often incidentally diagnosed. The term “empty sella” describes a missing pituitary gland in the sella turcica. Up to now, it is not known if routine endocrine assessment is necessary in patients with primary empty sella syndrome (PES) without clinical suspicion or history of neuroendocrine disorders.We performed a systematic literature research u...

A 22-year-old woman presented with weight gain (class I obesity), oligomenorrhea, impaired vision, and altered concentration. With suspected craniopharyngeoma she was treated with transcranial surgery; in fact for a suprasellar haemangioma. Post-operatively, she still presented an alteration in appetite with hyperphagia and excessive weight gain up to class III obesity. This syndrome is described as ‘hypothalamic obesity’ and results from any damage to the ventromedi...

Background: Endogenous Cushing’s syndrome (CS) is rare with an estimated yearly incidence of 1–3 patients/million. CS describes a group of diseases that have in common an excess secretion of glucocorticoids which results in a characteristic clinical phenotype. Severe courses of Cushing’s syndrome are characterized by a break-down of protein catabolism translating into clinical consequences including muscle weakness. While remission of CS is achievable by surgica...

Introduction: Cushing’s syndrome (CS) is a rare disease characterized by clinical features that show overlap with the ‘metabolic syndrome’. Pilot studies regarding the use facial image analysis software as a novel diagnostic tool in acromegaly and CS have shown promising results. Distinguishing CS patients from patients that show similar features without true hypercortisolism remains a challenge in clinical practice. To address this particular problem, we evalua...

Introduction: Sex steroid hormones exert a wide range of effects on metabolism. New techniques such as metabolomic profiling allow for a deeper insight into metabolic regulation. In epidemiological samples it has been demonstrated that most of these metabolites show sex-specific differences. However, if these differences are attributable to the effects of sex hormones or genetics is little understood so far.Methods: We performed targeted metabolomics pro...

Recent studies have reported a high prevalence of USP8 mutations in corticotroph adenomas causing Cushing’s disease. Nelson’s syndrome is a potentially life-threatening complication of bilateral adrenalectomy in patients with refractory Cushing’s disease that is caused by the development of an ACTH-secreting tumor in the pituitary gland. Whether USP8 alterations are also present in Nelson’s tumors has not been studied in detail so far....