Endocrine Abstracts

A 67-year-old lady presented with hypoglycaemic coma, treated with dextrose infusion. Previously she had a 3-month history of weight gain with increasingly frequent episodes of shaking and blurred vision, particularly at night, relieved by food.A 72-hour fast was undertaken. Within 2 h, she became confused. Serum glucose was 1.1 mmol/l with serum insulin 527 pmol/l (0–60 pmol/l), proinsulin 320 pmol/l (0–7 pmol/l) and C-peptide 2991 pmol/l (174...

Patients with haematological malignancies receiving neutropenia inducing chemotherapy sometimes have delayed discharge because of debility relating to complications of treatment. We assessed if these problems could be reduced by human growth hormone (GH) and also if haemopoetic recovery was quicker because stem cells have receptors for GH. In a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled, trial patients were assigned to receive either GH, 250 mcg BD (n =75) or placebo (n =75)...