Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Pituitary disorders are associated with increased mortality and morbidity. Data on the prevalence of pituitary disorders is scarce. Formal routine coding of diagnoses in outpatient endocrine practice lags behind medical coding of inpatients. Standardised coding could improve our understanding of disease burden and highlight areas of increasing need within our services.Objective: Automatically extract and assign SNOMED codes for endocrine di...

Background: Generally Endocrinologists strive to diagnose conditions biochemically prior to radiological investigation. Pituitary incidentalomas are observed in 10% of pituitary MRIs and together with stress induced hyperprolactinaemia, 10–20% of patients receive dopamine agonists (DAs) without a definite diagnosis. Menstrual imbalance is a common symptom of hyperprolactinaemia which can have multiple origins (e.g. hypothalamic, pituitary or ovarian). DAs have side effect...

Aims: Endocrine Society (ES) acromegaly guidelines (2014) addressed complication screening. Uncontrolled acromegaly is associated with elevated cardiovascular mortality due to risk factors including hypertension (HT), diabetes mellitus (DM), obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), and with an increased risk of colorectal cancer and polyps among other types of neoplasias. We audited our clinical practice with regards to acromegaly complication screening.Methods: ...

Aim: Endocrine Society (2016) published guidelines for hormonal replacement in hypopituitarism. Central hypothyroidism (CH) is defined as fT4 below reference range and mild CH is defined as fT4 in the low-normal range with suggestive symptoms in the context of pituitary disease. In patients with panhypopituitarism levothyroxine in doses sufficient to achieve fT4 levels in the upper half of the reference range is recommended. In our centre...

Aims: Endocrine Society (ES) acromegaly guidelines (2014) addressed complication screening. Uncontrolled acromegaly is associated with elevated cardiovascular mortality due to risk factors including hypertension (HT), diabetes mellitus (DM), obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), and with an increased risk of colorectal cancer and polyps among other types of neoplasias. We audited our clinical practice with regards to acromegaly complication screening.Methods: ...

Aim: Endocrine Society (2016) published guidelines for hormonal replacement in hypopituitarism. Central hypothyroidism (CH) is defined as fT4 below reference range and mild CH is defined as fT4 in the low-normal range with suggestive symptoms in the context of pituitary disease. In patients with panhypopituitarism levothyroxine in doses sufficient to achieve fT4 levels in the upper half of the reference range is recommended. In our centre...

Introduction: Low dose radioiodine (LDRAI) has been used to treat benign thyroid disease for over 70 years (1). However, controversies remain about the optimal dosage to administer. The Royal College of Physicians guidelines recommend a dosage of 400–600 MBq for uncomplicated Graves’ disease (2); the dose administered varies between centres.Methods: Outcome data at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary were collected retrospectively for patients who receiv...

Case report: A 33-year-old pregnant Nigerian woman presented at 37 wks gestation with a 2-week history of frequent headaches and visual disturbance. She had persistent galactorrhoea following previous pregnancy in 1998, which settled after a short course of bromocriptine. On examination, she had classical bitemporal hemianopia. Her prolactin was raised at 19,220 mU/L (higher than expected in a normal pregnancy), random cortisol 553 nmol/L and thyroid function tests satisfactor...

The widespread use of cross-sectional imaging has led to increased detection of adrenal masses in 2% of general population and over 7% of those above age 70. Although majority are benign, it is important to exclude hormonally active or malignant lesions. Mild autonomous cortisol secretion (MACS) is the most common and found in 30-50% of patients with adrenal mass. We reviewed our adrenal incidentaloma database for patients who attended the nurse-led pathway for biochemistry in...

Background: An estimated 462 million individuals are affected by type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), corresponding to 6.28% of the world’s population. Many epidemiological studies have indicated that T2DM may be a risk factor for neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease (PD). Whilst research suggests there are common molecular mechanisms underlying the conditions, studies investigating the epidemiological association have revealed conflicting res...