Endocrine Abstracts

We present the case of a 24 year old childhood cancer survivor with non-compliance of medication. Patient SB d.o.b. 30/07/1987, presented with a squint and loss of vision in the right eye at the age of four years. He was diagnosed with a craniopharyngioma and had a frontal craniotomy. Two years later, an MRI showed recurrence so he had further frontal surgery followed by irradiation (50 Gy in 28 fractions). Post operatively he was diagnosed with panhypopituitarism and remained...

Introduction: Research suggests long-term survivors of childhood cancer have an increased risk of manifesting the metabolic syndrome including insulin resistance (IR) despite many survivors of childhood malignancy if anything being underweight. It has been suggested growth hormone deficiency may be a factor in IR.Case report: We present a 20-year-old boy with partial hypopituitarism following allogenic bone marrow transplant in 1993 for treatment of acut...

We present a 45-year-old lady who initially presented with neurological symptoms and MRI was noted to show asymmetry of the pituitary gland. There were no endocrine symptoms. In 2011 she developed some visual symptoms (not typical of pituitary disease) and was referred to the ophthalmic department. MRI scan showed an 11 mm right-sided pituitary lesion and she was referred to the endocrine department. She gave a 2-year history of feeling increasingly unwell with back pain, sens...

The low dose dexamethasone suppression test (LDDT) is used routinely to exclude Cushings. This test can also be used to exclude androgen secreting tumours in females with elevated testosterone levels through normalisation of, or >40% suppression of serum levels.We have audited the use of the LDDT to assess its value in investigating women with raised androgens, to ascertain whether it reduced the need for other investigations and to identify any prob...

Aims: There is a lack of literature about mental and emotional dysfunction in patients with acromegaly or other pituitary tumours although impaired quality of life is well recognised. We examined whether adult patients with acromegaly experience a lower quality of life (QoL) than adult patients with other pituitary tumours and whether any difference in QoL is attributable to the patient’s perceived body image.Methods: Medical records were used to id...

Introduction: Discordance between growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) is observed in up to 30% patients with acromegaly, with the most common finding being high IGF1 with normal GH levels. Recently published guidelines recommended a nadir GH of 0.4 μg/L rather than 1.0 during growth hormone suppression test as being indicative of controlled disease. This may lead to reduced discordance between GH and IGF1. Methods We measured nadir GH (Beckman Coul...

Introduction: Growth hormone (GH)-deficiency in adults is associated with a range of adverse outcomes that improve with GH replacement. Pituitary adenomas and their treatment account for a large proportion of patients with adult GH-deficiency. However, safety fears have arisen due to the mitogenic effect of excess GH on pre-malignant colonic polyp formation in individuals with acromegaly. This, along with anecdotal suggestions of pituitary tumour recurrence, has prompted furth...