Endocrine Abstracts

IntroductionMetformin is being increasingly used in the treatment of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome where it improves the metabolic and reproductive parameters through the improvement of insulin sensitivity. Observations noted that it also tended to prevent weight gain or even facilitate weight loss. Trials carried out have positively enforced this in obese patients as well as those with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.We were interested to see if a similar favourable effect coul...

Case report: A 29-year old Caucasian male was referred to our Endocrinology Outpatient Clinic following a recent admission after an episode of collapse when he was noted to have abnormal thyroid function tests: fT4 32.6 (7.5–21.1) pmol/l, TSH 6.41 (0.34–5.6) mU/l. These were repeated and again showed elevated fT4 26.9 pmol/l and normal TSH 2.29 mU/l. He reported some tremor of both hands but denied palpitations. He was clinically euthyroid but p...

Hypercalcaemia is a common finding in numerous diseases processes but is non-specific to its cause. We report a case of a 55-year-old lady with known sarcoidosis who developed hypercalcaemia and elevated parathyroid hormone due to a parathyroid adenoma. Both these disease processes are independently associated with hypercalcamia, but it is unusual to have both in combination and difficult to establish which is the primary cause. In our case the diagnosis was complicated by a n...

Background: We describe a 64-year-old lady with past medical history of Thalassaemia Trait and Hypertension, who was presented with Cushing’s syndrome.Clinical presentation: This patient was admitted with severe bi-basal pneumonia in February 2010 and treated successfully. But unfortunately her symptoms persisted with increasing facial swelling in end of May 2010, therefore, a staging CT was arranged and found incidental 6×5 cm left adrenal mas...

Background: Struma ovarii, defined as containing 50% or more thyroid tissue is rare and accounts for 1% of ovarian tumours. Presentation is non-specific, relating to mass effect. Although the tumour predominantly consists of thyroidal tissue, features of hyperthyroidism occur in <5% of cases. Majority are benign, histological features of thyroid cancer are found in about 5–10%. Seventy per cent of these are papillary thyroid cancer (PTC). We present a case of struma o...

The role of the thyrotropin receptor (TSHR) in bone is unclear. TSHR-deficient mice have low bone mineral density (BMD) and focal osteosclerosis despite normal thyroid hormones (suggesting TSHR function, in bone, is important). Subclinical hypothyroidism (SH) has various aetiologies including thyroid autoimmunity (TA) and inactivating TSHR mutations (TSHR-M). In TSHR-deficiency & TSH-M elevated TSH compensates for reduced TSHR function, whereas in TA it compensates for red...

Introduction: The effects of maternal suboptimal gestational thyroid function (SGTF) on age 3 offspring’s cognitive function were investigated in the Controlled Antenatal Thyroid Screening (CATS) randomised trial, comparing SGTF mothers who received (SGTF-T), or didn’t (SGTF-U), levothyroxine during pregnancy. The analysis was repeated at age 9 in the CATS-II follow-up study, also including children of mothers with normal gestational thyroid function (NGTF). Here we ...

Objectives: The Controlled Antenatal Thyroid Screening (CATS) study I was a randomised trial investigating the effects of levothyroxine treatment for suboptimal gestational thyroid function (SGTF), evaluating mothers with normal gestational thyroid function (NGTF), SGTF who received (SGTF-T), or didn’t (SGTF-U), levothyroxine during pregnancy. The present follow-up study (CATS II) reports the long-term effects of SGTF and levothyroxine treatment on anthropometric and card...