Endocrine Abstracts

GH is now well recognised as therapeutic modality for treatment of adult patients with documented GH deficiency, and long-term experience is being gathered. This has, however, revealed also several therapeutic dilemmas, which clinicians managing these patients need to be aware of. Some of these examples are: What to do in case of brain tumours/meningeomas? What to do in patients with concomitant diabetes mellitus with and without complications? How do we handle the patient wit...

Natural and synthetic chemicals such as estrogenic and androgenic compounds have been observed to contribute to the pool of endocrine disruptors in the effluent water from sewage treatment works and may interfere with the endogenous hormonal system regulating reproduction in aquatic organisms. The teleost Zoarces viviparus is a recognized model used in aquatic toxicology due to the existence of a maternal-fetal trophic relationship with embryos/larvae developing in the ...

Introduction: The plasma cortisol response to the ACTH test is known to vary significantly by assays. An automated cortisol immunoassays with increased specificity due to the shift from polyclonal to MABs, and standardized against mass spectrometry was recently introduced, with an expected decrease in cortisol concentrations by 20%. Cut-offs used in clinical practice for patient evaluation will thus have to be adjusted. We aimed to assess the normal cortisol response to ACTH s...

Introduction: Excessive consumption of liquorice can cause endocrine symptoms of apparent mineralocorticoid excess (AME). This is usually caused by excessive consumption of liquorice-containing sweets and native liquorice root but the different chemical compounds in liquorice may also be used in many other products where it is considered an additive and therefore not explicitly declared.Case: We here report a 21-year-old patient who exhibited severe symp...

Background: Headache often occurs as incapacitating symptom among the patients with acromegaly. GH involvement in the pathophysiologic mechanism and an analgesic effect of somatostatin analogues has been described, but the exact mechanism is not clear. Whether the pan somatostatine (sst)-receptor agonists are superior as concern the antinociceptive effect than the more selective ones is not evidenced.Case report: A 21-year old woman, diagnosed with acrom...

Objective: To evaluate the association between body-composition and peak GH, during two standard GH stimulation tests; the pyridostigmine-GHRH (PDGHRH) test and an insulin tolerance test (ITT).Method: 83 healthy subjects (56 men), aged 18–65 years with a median BMI of 24 kg/m2 (range 17–35) underwent a PDGHRH test and an ITT in random order 1 week to 1 month apart. Women had both tests performed in the same phase of their menstrual c...

Growth hormone (GH) has a well known anabolic effect on skeletal muscles, and patients with GH deficiency (GHD) are characterised by a reduced muscle mass, but also reduced bone mineral density (BMD) and content (BMC), which have been ascribed to GHD per se. Correspondingly, the increase in bone and muscle mass by GH therapy has been seen as separate GH influences on bones and muscles, respectively. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate if changes in BMD/BM...

Objectives: Alemtuzumab, a monoclonal antibody against CD52, is used in the treatment of multiple sclerosis. A side effect to the treatment is development of autoimmune thyroid disease. The aim was to evaluate the rate, type and course of thyroid disease in Danish patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) previously treated with Alemtuzumab.Methods: The study was a retrospective cohort study of patients treated with first series of alemtuzumab for multiple s...

Introduction: Cyclic Cushing’s syndrome (CS) is a rare disorder, characterised by alternating periods of normo – and hypercortisolism.Case report: An 18-year-old young man was followed at the Department of Growth and Reproduction due to Klinefelter and received androgen replacement since the age of 12. As he was shifted to i.m. injections his liver enzymes increased and liver damage due to androgen replacement was suspected. A liver biopsy show...

Germline mutations in the succinate-dehydrogenase subunits A, B, C, and D (SDHA/B/C/D) predispose to development of the phaeochromocytoma-paraganglioma (FPGL) syndromes. SDHC and SDHD are anchoring proteins located in the inner mitochondrial membrane. The SDH complex has two major roles in energy production it is part of the tricarboxic acid cycle catalysing the oxidative dehydrogenation of succinate coupled to the reduction of ubiquinone. It is also the complex II component o...