Endocrine Abstracts

The advent of insulin almost 80 years ago revolutionised the treatment of diabetes and must be one of the great achievements of twentieth century medicine. Since then, there has been an increasing understanding of the need to attain and uphold near normoglycaemia to delay the onset and retard the progression of diabetic complications. Major advances in the understanding of the molecular assembly, biological activity and therapeutic properties of insulin have led to the many de...

Hyponatraemia is a well-recognised neurosurgical complication, but the incidence and complications are unknown.Objective : We aimed to define the incidence, pathophysiology and effects of significant hyponatraemia following neurosurgical admissions.Methods: All neurosurgical patients with significant hyponatraemia (plasma sodium <130 millimol per litre) between January 2002 and September 2003 were identified from computerised la...