Endocrine Abstracts

Liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) methods are considered superior to immunoassay for the analysis of serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25-OHD) due to improved performance and potential cost benefits. As LC–MS/MS is appropriate for the analysis of other clinically relevant hormones tandem mass spectrometers are becoming commonplace in UK clinical laboratories. However, like immunoassay, LC–MS/MS methods are not foolproof and inappropriate use of...

Background: SARS-CoV-2 targets membrane-bound angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) to achieve cellular entry. Resultant loss of ACE2 function may lead to unregulated activation of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS), contributing to the pathogenesis of hypertension and triggering a proinflammatory cascade. However, evidence to support this is conflicting, with either no change or an increase in the concentration of circulating aldosterone reported in patients wit...

Background: The recently published ‘Consensus on Criteria for Cure of Acromegaly’ (Giustina et al. JCEM, 2010) highlighted concerns regarding the quality of currently available insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) immunoassays which may contribute, at least in part, to the discordance between GH and IGF1 that is observed in up to 30% of patients with acromegaly after treatment. The development of mass spectroscopy (MS)-based technology has been proposed ...

As thyroglobulin antibodies (TgAb) are a well recognised cause of interference in thyroglobulin (Tg) immunoassays current guidelines recommend that TgAb should be measured concurrently with Tg when monitoring thyroidectomised thyroid cancer patients. However the concordance between different TgAb assays has been questioned despite the availability of an International TgAb Reference Preparation (MRC 65/93).Four commonly used TgAb assays were tested in 145...

Metyrapone (MT) is used in the medical management of Cushing’s syndrome as it decreases serum cortisol (CT) levels by inhibiting adrenal β-hydroxylation of 11-deoxycortisol, the final step in CT synthesis. CT precursors, in particular 11-deoxycortisol (DOC), increase following MT therapy. Monitoring glucocorticoid replacement in patients taking MT could therefore be confounded as DOC cross-reacts in commonly used immunoassays (IA) for serum CT. Serum CT results from ...

Background: Adrenal vein sampling (AVS) remains the gold-standard for distinguishing unilateral and bilateral disease in primary aldosteronism (PA). However, it is invasive, technically demanding, and may yield inconclusive or equivocal results. 11C-Metomidate PET-CT (11C-MTO-PET-CT) is a non-invasive alternative to AVS for localising unilateral aldosterone-producing adenomas (APAs).Methods/patients: We report a retrospective analys...