Endocrine Abstracts

A 47-year-old lady presented with a long history of resistant hypertension. Her GP referred her for further investigation to a cardiologist who found a smaller right kidney on ultrasound scan and an elevated rennin level. Renal artery MRA revealed right renal artery stenosis. On September 2008, she underwent right renal artery stenting and was advised to stop taking the antihypertensive medications (doxazosin and amlodipine). A week later she was admitted with headache, vomiti...

Autoimmune adrenal insufficiency may be familial or non familial. We report a case of identical female twins, both with Addison’s disease and detectable antibodies to adrenal cortex.Case report: Twin A at age of 27 developed Addison’s disease and hypothyroidism. She was found to be positive for anti-adrenal antibodies, anti-thyroid antibodies and intrinsic factor auto antibodies. Therefore Twin B was tested for the same auto antibodies and was ...

A 36-year-old gentleman presented to his GP 2 years ago with hypertension and was commenced on valsartan. In January 2008, he was noted to have mildly deranged LFT and abdominal ultrasound scan showed mild fatty liver infiltration and bilateral renal stones. He was referred to Urology for investigation of renal stones and a CT IVU showed multiple renal calculi, a 6×5×5 cm soft tissue enhancing lesion arising from the right adrenal gland and a 7 mm calcified density w...

Background: Recent studies show that Infliximab (IFX), an antibody against tumour necrosis factor α (TNFα), may improve growth in children with Crohn’s disease (CD). These studies have not adequately addressed the concomitant factors such as medication, nutrition and puberty that may also improve growth.Methods: Retrospective study of 22 children (13 M) with CD, median age at start of IFX 13.2 years (7.4, 16.1) with auxology at 6 months be...

Background: Recent studies show that infliximab (IFX), an antibody against tumour necrosis factorα (TNFα), may improve growth in children with Crohn’s disease (CD). These studies have not adequately addressed the concomitant factors such as medication, nutrition and puberty that may also improve growth.Methods: Retrospective study of 22 children (13M) with CD, median age at start of IFX 13.2 years (7.4, 16.1) with auxology at 6 months befo...

Background: Children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) may suffer from growth and pubertal delay.Objective: To assess pubertal status and growth in a group of boys with IBD before (T+0) and 6 months after (T+6) initiation of testosterone therapy.Methods: Retrospective study of boys with IBD undergoing pubertal induction. Height (Ht) and pubertal status were obtained at T+0 and T+6. Markers of disease activity and data on concom...

Pregnancy is characterised by profound changes in maternal physiology. For instance, there are changes in the metabolic, cardiovascular, immune and renal systems of the mother which enable her to support fetal nutrient supply and growth. These changes are signalled in part by the production of protein hormones by the placenta (Napso et al., 2018). Failures in maternal adaptation and placental function lead to pregnancy complications such as abnormal birth weight and g...

Background: Puberty is understood to be commonly effected in adolescents with Crohn’s Disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). However, the extent of this effect and related problems with growth, have rarely been quantified.Objective: To determine the impact of CD and UC on pubertal growth.Methods: Retrospective study of 148 children with IBD (casenotes available, 135) who fulfilled the criteria for describing growth spurt pa...

CGRP-alpha is a 37 amino acid peptide generated by alternative splicing of calcitonin gene transcripts. CGRP-alpha is present in a number of areas of the brain involved in the regulation of appetite, including the PVN. CGRP(8-37) is a competitive antagonist of CGRP-alpha at the CGRP-type 1 receptor. CGRP-alpha is known to inhibit food intake when given intracerebroventricularly, but the anatomical localisation of this effect is not known. Aims To investigate the effects of CGR...