Endocrine Abstracts

Patients with craniopharyngioma have increased mortality attributed to cardiorespiratory disease, when compared to other hypopituitary populations. There is little data on the cause for excess of fatal respiratory disease in this condition. Clinical observation had identified sleep apnoea in some craniopharyngioma patients in our cohort. Sleep apnoea increases cerebrovascular and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Our hypothesis was that sleep apnoea could be a contributo...

Pituitary patients with different aetiologies of hypopituitarism exhibit differing phenotypes despite optimal replacement therapy. We hypothesised that differential regulation of the isoenzyme 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 1 (11β-HSD1), which mediates the autocrine conversion of cortisone to cortisol in adipose tissues and liver may play a role.We prospectively studied 11β-HSD1 activity through analysis of 24 h urine cortisol/cortisone ...

Leptin is an adipocytokine with a role in appetite, energy expenditure and reproductive regulation. In normal, non-obese individuals, leptin levels are higher in females, independent of differences in body fat between the genders. High levels of leptin that were disproportionate to body mass index (BMI) have been reported in craniopharyngioma patients, thus we hypothesised that surgical resection and hypothalamic damage conferred leptin resistance on craniopharyngioma patients...

Adult GH deficiency is associated with poor quality of life (QoL) which has been shown to improve with GH replacement is some but not all, mainly short-term studies. In addition, it remains unclear whether this improvement in QoL is sustainable.We aimed to establish the short and long-term effect of GH replacement on QoL in 167 adult patients with severe GH deficiency in a prospective study. QoL was assessed using the quality of life-assessment of growth...

Obesity is a recognised complication of craniopharyngioma (CP), but its aetiology is not understood. Leptin, which signals energy reserve, and ghrelin, which regulates appetite, are implicated in the development of obesity.Our aim was to assess leptin and ghrelin levels in CP patients and to compare these to normal and BMI-matched controls.CP patients were identified from the local database. All CP patients were on hormone replacem...