Endocrine Abstracts

There are limited morbidity data regarding patients with adrenal insufficiency. We undertook a retrospective study to examine the aetiology and frequency of emergency hospital admissions. We identified 69 patients receiving hydrocortisone replacement for adrenal insufficiency. 50 medical records were obtained; 20 patients had primary adrenal failure (including CAH) and 30 patients had ACTH deficiency. All emergency admissions that occurred within the last 10 years were reviewe...

The frequent use of brain and head MRI/CT has lead to an increase in the number of incidental pituitary lesions reported, so called pituitary ‘incidentalomas’. Such lesions require endocrine evaluation of pituitary function and radiological follow up. We performed a retrospective study to examine the source of these referrals, size of the incidentalomas, frequency of pituitary dysfunction and changes during follow-up. We performed a search of the departmental endocri...

It is important to identify whether benign adrenal incidentalomas are hormonally active. Traditionally, investigations were arranged during the first medical consultation and relied heavily on the patient remembering a considerable number of instructions. The patient was required to collect urine bottles from pathology, a prescription from pharmacy and perform multiple tests including renin, which was often incorrectly performed in outpatients. Due to the cumbersome nature of ...

Hypopituitarism is associated with increased cardiovascular mortality. It has been suggested that hypogonadism, hypothyroidism, growth hormone deficiency (GHD), or indeed unphysiological hormone replacement regimens, might contribute to this excess cardiovascular risk. The adverse effect of hypercortisolaemia on insulin resistance, carbohydrate metabolism and hypertension is well recognised. It is also known that glucocorticoids adversely affect the coagulation-fibrinolytic sy...