Endocrine Abstracts

Anecdotal reports suggest that management of Graves’ disease (GD) is more challenging in patients with concomitant autoimmune disease, however there are few studies evaluating this premise and thus no satisfactory evidence base to guide clinicians. We aimed to identify the impact of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) on treatment outcomes of GD.We identified all GD patients (n=265) who attended endocrinology clin...

Here we present a case of follicular thyroid cancer with elevation of thyroglobulin (Tg, in ng/ml) detected almost 10 years after initial surgery and radioactive iodine therapy (RAI). The elevated Tg persisted for years before he was found to have a metastasis in his kidney 16 years after his initial cancer treatment. A 78 year old male had a total thyroidectomy followed by RAI therapy in 2001 for a 2.4 cm follicular thyroid cancer. His Tg became mildly elevated in 2009, and c...

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the hepatic manifestation of metabolic syndrome. It is a spectrum of disease ranging from simple intracellular lipid accumulation and eventually progressing to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). 5β-reductase (AKR1D1) is highly expressed in human liver and catalyzes a fundamental step in bile acid (BA) synthesis. BAs are established as potent regulators of metabolic phenotype and we have hypothesised that AKR1D1 plays...

Introduction: Lack of clinically relevant experimental models of human prostate cancer hampers evaluation of novel therapeutic agents. Currently, androgen deprivation therapy is the gold standard treatment for advanced prostate cancer, but inevitably cells survive and repopulate the tumour. Castrate-resistant cells are critical therapeutic targets for more effective treatments but current model systems cannot determine when they arise in disease progression and are unable to r...

Introduction: Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is reported to be common in patients undergoing bariatric surgery, but the diagnostic accuracy of non-invasive NAFLD biomarkers to stage disease and track progress longitudinally has not been assessed.Methods: 274 patients undergoing bariatric surgery were included in the study. Intra-operative liver biopsies were taken from 163 patients and histologically graded using t...

Introduction: Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is reported to be common in patients undergoing bariatric surgery, but the diagnostic accuracy of non-invasive NAFLD biomarkers to stage disease and track progress longitudinally has not been assessed.Methods: 274 patients undergoing bariatric surgery were included in the study. Intra-operative liver biopsies were taken from 163 patients and histologically graded using t...

Introduction: Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), is present in over 90% of obese patients undergoing bariatric surgery. It is a spectrum of pathology ranging from steatosis through to inflammation (Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis, NASH) and fibrosis. Bariatric surgery is currently the most effective treatment for NAFLD, but post-operative hepatic decompensation can occur and therefore pre-operative stratification of liver disease severity is beneficial. Several non-invas...

A 74 year old lady was admitted with an agitated depression. She had been taking Lorazepam and Olanzapine throughout the preceding 6 months. Escitalopram had been introduced 2 months prior to admission and the dose was escalated 3 weeks prior to presentation. The dose of Olanzapine was doubled at the same time.She was treated with sotalol for atrial fibrillation and she had documented labile hypertension (BP range 77/57–250/118). She had fluctuating...

Objective: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the hepatic manifestation of metabolic syndrome. Steroid hormones and bile acids are potent regulators of hepatic carbohydrate and lipid metabolism. Steroid 5β-reductase (AKR1D1) is highly expressed in human liver where it inactivates steroid hormones and catalyzes a fundamental step in bile acid synthesis.Methods: Human liver biopsies were obtained from 34 obese patients and AKR1D1 mRNA expres...