Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Prolonged therapy with high-dose corticosteroids (≥ 7.5 mg Prednisolone or 1–1.5 mg Dexamethasone daily) can result in adrenal atrophy and hypofunction. Abrupt withdrawal of corticosteroids after prolonged use can lead to adrenal insufficiency, corticosteroid withdrawal symptoms or a relapse of the initial disease. There are several in-house protocols for safe corticosteroid dose tapering but a national protocol is required.Our p...

Introduction: Glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) is used to measure glycaemic control in patients with diabetes, and accuracy depends on normal erythrocyte lifespan. Dapsone causes spuriously low HbA1c results by reducing erythrocyte lifespan through haemolysis and methaemoglobin formation, which interferes with the liquid-chromatography method used to measure HbA1c. Dapsone-induced haemolysis (DIH) is mostly reported in patients with glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficie...