Endocrine Abstracts

Hypoxia inducible factor (HIF) is an a/b heterodimeric transcriptional complex that mediates a broad range of cellular and systemic responses to hypoxia. Transcriptional targets include genes involved in angiogenesis, erythropoiesis, catecholamine metabolism, matrix metabolism, energy metabolism and cell survival decisions. Whilst HIF-b subunits are constitutive nuclear proteins, both the abundance and activity of HIF-a subunits are strongly inducible by hypoxia, leading to fo...

An eighty four year old lady was admitted to medical ward with an acute on chronic confusion. She was diagnosed to have thyrotoxicosis 5 weeks prior to this [TSH less than 0.02 (ref range 0.35 -5.00 miu per litre) & fT4 of 41.7 (ref range 11.0 - 23.0 pmol per litre)] and was treated by her general practitioner with carbimazole 30 mg daily. Despite this her thyroid function did not improve. The dose of carbimazole was further increased to 60mg daily with minimal response. T...