Endocrine Abstracts

Central dopamine and oxytocin have been shown in many studies to facilitate aspects of male sexual function. However, it is poorly understood how these two neuromodulators interact to mediate sexual behaviour or which receptors are involved. Much evidence has recently implicated a role for the dopamine D2 receptor in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) and supraoptic nucleus (SON) in regulating aspects of male sexual behaviour. Using Sprague-Dawley male rats (225–250 g), we...

Personalized (precision) medicine has already made its mark and has the potential to enhance patient management. It consists in adapting healthcare strategies tailored to individual and disease characteristics. Nuclear medicine has a central role in personalized medicine via theranostics approaches. PRRT is now a well established treatment option for well-differentiated advanced neuroendocrine tumors (NETs). PRRT is based on the administration of somatostatin analogs (SSA) lab...

Introduction: A recent meta-analysis has suggested that combined replacement with Liothyronine (T3) and Levothyroxine (T4) confers no additional benefit to patients with hypothyroidism but patients still occasionally request this treatment approach.Aim: To analyse the indications and biochemical characteristics of patients on T4/T3 combination therapy for Hypothyroidism in our cohort of patients.Methodology: A retrospective search ...

Aim: We previously reported preliminary evidence that use of TRH with CRH during inferior petrosal sinus sampling (IPSS) in Cushing’s syndrome gave additional information about quality of pituitary venous sampling and significance of gradients. We now report long-term experience of this technique in 40 patients investigated 1993–2005. We used standard central:peripheral ratios (C:P) of 2:1 basally and 3:1 after stimulation to indicate pituitary secretion and intersin...

Background: Metformin is increasingly used in the management of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) but there remain differences in opinion as to its precise role in terms of clinical benefit. We retrospectively reviewed the effects of metformin on menstrual regularity, fertility, weight and hirsutism in 244 patients with PCOS treated routinely with metformin in our clinics.Results: Patients were of median age 27 years (range 12–47) with median BMI of ...

Vitamin D is a large group of structurally similar substances (calciferols) with diverse biological functions. Although approximately 40 different vitamin D metabolites have been determined so far, only 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D was considered to be biologically active and the determination of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OH D) served a tool to assess vitamin D supply. Recently it was found that also C3-epimers of vitamin D have their biological effect, however these effects differ f...

The integrity of bone marrow and its various haemopoeitic cells require several hormones including sex steroids. Sex steroids were used in the past to treat aplastic anaemia. A 27 years old Saudi male who underwent a resection of hypothalamic astrocytoma and developed panhypopituitarism was admitted to ICU with shunt related meningitis and noted to have thrombocytopenia of 90,000 anemia of 9.5 gldl, which progressed over the subsequent week following admission. He recovered fr...

Adrenocortical carcinoma is extremely rare and accounts for 0.05–2% of all malignant neoplasms with an estimated incidence of 0.5–2% per million people per year. Feminising adrenal carcinoma is even rarer. We submit such a rare case presenting with gynaecomastia.A 50 year old man presented with a year history of increasing bilateral gynaecomastia. He had no problems with his sexual function. Initial investigations by the GP showed low testoster...

The study presents the outcome of determination of serum VEGF and sVCAM in 58 patients (43 women and 15 men aged 20–76 years) with adrenal tumors: adrenal cortical adenoma (34), adrenal cortical carcinoma (12), pheochromocytoma (9), myelolipoma (2) and lymphangioma (1). Control group comprised 25 practically healthy volunteers (13 women and 12 men aged 17–67 years). Serum VEGF was measured by enzyme immunoassay using reactants from ‘R&D’ (USA), sVCAM &#...

Traditional herbal medicine has been used for centuries to treat various chronic diseases – There have been some anecdotal evidence to suggest that the use of some of these herbal medicine may be both safe & efficacious in patients and laboratory animals with diabetes. Many patients with diabetes worldwide use some of these medicines without informing their caring physicians. PHS-E2 (Glucoherb) is a Chinese traditional herbal medicine, which is extracted from two medi...