Endocrine Abstracts

The paediatric diabetes best practice tariff (BPT) was introduced in 2012, with the aim of standardising and improving paediatric diabetes services across England. In the first year, only about 50% of units were claiming the full tariff but this had substantially improved for 2013–2014. It is probably too early to see if there has been a positive impact on outcomes but data from the East Midlands will be presented to look at this in more detail. From 2014, the BPT will al...

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SCS is defined as an adrenal tumor (usually adenoma) with autonomous cortisol secretion and no overt symptoms of Cushing’s syndrome. SCS has attracted much attention because it often is masked by lifestyle-related diseases such as diabetes mellitus (DM), metabolic syndrome (MS) and hypertension. Because of the broad variation in autonomous cortisol secretion among patients, diagnostic criteria for SCS have not been fully established. Furthermore, the cut-off values of the...

Graves’ disease (GD) is a heterogeneous disorder affecting with varying degrees of severity the thyroid and eyes. This variety may suggest that complex interactions between genetic, environmental and endogenous factors influence the clinical course of GD. Although the genetic predisposition to GD is well established, the significance of genotype-phenotype correlations remains controversial. Moreover, the lack of complete phenotypic concordance in twin studies suggested th...

Somatostatin receptors (sstr1–5) and dopamine receptor 2 (D2DR) are expressed and co-localized in several endocrine tumors including pituitary adenomas that express both D2DR and various subtypes of somatostatin receptors, depending on the original cell type. Treatment of pituitary adenomas using somatostatin or dopamine analogs targets only one receptor (octreotide/lanreotide mainly sst2, cabergoline D2DR). Association of octreotide and cabergoline showed limited additiv...

Recent progress in molecular genetics has successfully identified multiple causative genes for DSD. Such advance is primarily based on the detection of pathologic mutations on coding sequences. However, genetic disorders can be caused by other mechanisms. Here, I will review such mechanisms that have been identified recently.Aromatase excess syndrome (AEXS) as a model for genomic disorder: AEXS is a rare autosomal dominant disorder characterized by gynec...

Metabolic syndrome is a cascade of metabolic diseases starting with obesity and progressing to atherosclerosis and is often fatal because of serious cardiovascular problems such as heart/brain infarction and hemorrhage. Accumulating evidence has revealed a critical involvement of inflammatory responses triggered by lesional macrophages in its pathogenesis. Importantly, we found that macrophages are associated with the progression of these diseases not only in the induction of ...

While it is well known that hyperthyroidism leads to weight loss, and hypothyroidism is associated with weight gain, there has been an increasing focus on the relationship between thyroid function and body weight in recent years. A moderate elevation of TSH concentrations, which is associated with triiodothyronine (T3) values in or slightly above the upper normal range, is frequently found in obese humans. These thyroid hormone alterations in obesity seem rather a c...

Introduction: Mesenchymal bone marrow cells (BMCs) contain pluripotent progenitor cells, which differentiate into multiple lineages. In a previous study, we reported that adenovirus-mediated forced expression of steroidogenic factor-1/adrenal 4 binding protein (SF-1/Ad4BP), an essential nuclear receptor for steroidogenesis, could transform human BMCs into steroidogenic cells, suggesting a possibility of cell transplantation therapy in patients with steroid deficiency. In this ...

Purpose: The effects of the Great East Japan Earthquake, a life-threatening event, on glycemic and lipid control in type 2 diabetic patients were examined. The influence of the DPP-IV inhibitors on glycemic and lipid levels was studied.Method: Three hundred fifty type 2 diabetes outpatients (age 63 years old) who followed careful diet regimen on a normal condition were divided into the two groups: the administrated group (A group), 175 patients who were ...