Endocrine Abstracts

Childhood cancer survival rates have increased dramatically over recent decades and currently >80% of children with cancer will survive over the long-term. This has resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of young adults experiencing late effects of treatment, including infertility. Ovarian tissue transplantation has recently proven successful for fertility restoration in girls. However, for prepubertal males due to receive gonadotoxic therapy there are currently no ...

Many industrial chemicals and pharmaceutical products have been proposed to result in endocrine disruption in humans. This includes potential effects on reproductive development in males and females. Chemicals that have been proposed to impact on male reproductive development include plasticizers, synthetic oestrogens and analgesics. Much of the data on the effect of exposure to these agents are based on studies conducted in rodent models; however, confirmation of such finding...

Background: Growth hormone stimulation testing (GHST) is used to diagnose growth hormone deficiency (GHD) in children. Given that sex steroids impact on anterior pituitary function, there is concern around the efficacy of GH stimulation testing in pre/peripubertal children, where sex steroid levels are low. Sex steroid priming prior to GH stimulation testing is thought to improve test efficacy in these children, however evidence to support its use in clinical practice is limit...

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic led to major changes in the pattern of presentation to Emergency Departments. This prompted concern within Paediatrics that this altered behaviour could lead to delays in the diagnosis of life-threatening conditions such as type 1 diabetes. A multicentre study was conducted to determine the incidence, referral patterns and severity of disease at presentation of this condition. Methods: This was a U.K.-based multi-centre ...

Introduction: Androgens have long been known to play an important role in health and wellbeing. A range of clinical disorders in males and females can arise due to disruption to production and action of androgens. Androgen receptor (AR) is widely expressed throughout the adrenal cortex, yet the wider role for androgen signalling in the adrenal remains underexplored due to the lack of suitable animal models.Methods: An adrenal-specific androgen receptor k...

Reproductive disorders in males that manifest at birth (cryptorchidism, hypospadias), or young adulthood (low sperm count, lower testosterone levels, testicular cancer) may share a common origin and constitute a ‘testicular dysgenesis syndrome’ (TDS). Normal reproductive tract development is programmed by androgens within the ‘masculinisation programming window’ (MPW, e15.5–e18.5-rats; ~8–14 weeks’ gestation-humans). In rats, TDS disorders ca...

From human epidemiological and related studies, there is strong (indirect) evidence that common male reproductive disorders that manifest at birth (cryptorchidism, hypospadias) or in adulthood (low sperm count, low testosterone, primary hypogonadism) may have a common origin in foetal life due to impaired androgen (testosterone) production or action; the so-called testicular dysgenesis syndrome (TDS) hypothesis. Whilst the foetal origin of cryptorchidism and hypospadias is sel...

Background: 5-Cytosine methylation of DNA is a means of encoding epigenetic information. In the testis, the generation of de novo methylation is conducted by the enzymes DNMT3a and 3b and the co-enzyme DNMT3L. Epigenetic marks made to the DNA of germ cells are important as a potential means of trans-generational carriage of environmental information. In fetal life, germ cell demethylation and remethylation are important physiological events and these overlap with key ...

Introduction: Effects on fertility have been seen as important late effects of treatment for childhood cancer.Aim: To evaluate the impact of chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment for childhood medulloblastoma on gonadal function.Methods: Retrospective cohort study of all children treated for medulloblastoma (diagnosed from 2–18 years) in a single institution in the UK between 1983–2011 and a minimum relapse-free surviva...

Testicular dysgenesis syndrome (TDS) is a group of associated conditions (testicular germ cell tumours (TGCT), cryptorchidism, hypospadias and low sperm counts) that are thought to have a common origin in fetal life. Exposure of fetal rats to environmental chemicals such as the endocrine disrupting chemical di(n-butyl) phthalate (DBP) results in a TDS-like syndrome. However, exposed rats do not develop TGCT and the rodent is a poor model in this context. The effects of ...