Endocrine Abstracts

We report a case of a 57 year old lady who presented with marked weight loss, dizziness and general malaise. The physical examination revealed pallor, hypotension, tachycardia and dehydration. There was no muco-cutaneous pigmentation. Routine biochemistry showed normocytic anaemia, hyponatraemia, mild hyperkalaemia and renal impairment. Abdominal ultrasound showed presence of bilateral large supra-renal masses. A short synacthen test showed sub-optimal rise in plasma cortisol ...

Diazoxide is an agonist of ATP sensitive K+ (KATP) channels in beta-cells and is used in the treatment of hyperinsulinism caused by insulinomas or Hyperinsulinism in Infancy (HI). The responsiveness of patients to diazoxide is highly variable and complicated by side-effects which include hypertension and hypertrichosis. The aim of this study was to examine the actions of a novel benzothiadiazine-derivative, BPDZ-154, on beta-cell KATP channels and insulin release. W...

Congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI) is characterised by unregulated insulin secretion from pancreatic β-cells. The most severe forms are associated with defects in SUR1 and Kir6.2 (encoded by ABCC8 and KCNJ11), which form KATP channels in β-cells. Diazoxide therapy often fails in the treatment of CHI and may be due to reduced cell surface expression of KATP channels. We investigated methods to increase surface expression of KATP<...