Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Patients on long-term glucocorticoid treatment are at risk of adrenal insufficiency during glucocorticoid treatment. The side effect can occur during glucocorticoid treatment if there is a mismatch between glucocorticoid requirements and production/intake. High-dose glucocorticoid treatment is often sufficient to overcome most stressful situations. A low-dose of 5 mg prednisolone/day is however, equivalent to 20 mg hydrocortisone, a dose often used as basal glucoco...

Objective: We aimed to assess the prevalence of glucocorticoid-induced adrenal insufficiency in prednisolone treated patients, and its relation to glucocorticoid dose and duration of treatment.Subjects and measures: As part of a larger study 48 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (33 women, aged 34–85 years) treated with a mean prednisolone dose of 7.0 mg (range 5–20 mg) per day, and a mean duration of treatment of 95 months (range: 6–360 m...

Introduction: Phthalates are suspected to influence thyroid function in epidemiologic and experimental animal studies. The aim of the study was to investigate the ability of primary human thyroid cell cultures to metabolise phthalates and a possible concentration-dependent response of phthalates on thyroglobulin (Tg) secretion.Methods: Human thyrocytes obtained from thyroidectomies were cultured to confluent monolayers. These were exposed to DEHP in conc...

Background: Pheochromocytomas and catecholamine-secreting paragangliomas (PPGL) are rare catecholamine-producing tumors. Due to the rarity, limited data on prognosis exists and data are mainly from tertiary centers with potential referral bias. Here, we present population-based mortality data over an observation period of 40 years.Materials and methods: We identified a cohort of 198 PPGL patients diagnosed 1 January 1977 to 31 December 2016 in North and ...

Introduction: Some methodologists have raised concern about the validity of the standard method of assessing patient-reported outcomes, i.e. retrospective questionnaires. Repeated momentary measurements have been introduced to avoid recall bias and provide ecological validity. Although having theoretical advantages, the measurement properties remain unsubstantiated. This study examines the relationship between the retrospective thyroid-related quality of life patient-reported ...

Introduction: Evaluation of glucocorticoid production generally requires a dynamic test. Cut-off levels for baseline cortisol concentrations predicting the outcome of a Synacthen test have been proposed for different cortisol assays. With introduction of the new Roche Elecsys Cortisol II assay, P-cortisol concentrations are expected to decrease by 20%. We have investigated cut-off levels for baseline P-cortisol concentrations measured with the Roche Elecsys Cortisol II assay t...

Introduction: The thyroid-related quality-of-life patient-reported outcome ThyPRO questionnaire is the most widely used tool for measuring health-related quality of life (QoL) in patients with benign thyroid diseases. The aim of this study was to adapt and validate a Spanish version of the ThyPRO.Methods: The ThyPRO consists of 85 items, grouped in 13 scales and one single QoL item. Scales cover physical and mental symptoms, well-being and function, soci...