Endocrine Abstracts

A previously well 49 year old woman was referred to our endocrine service with a compelling 4 month history of polyuria and polydipsia. Her 24 h fluid intake was estimated to be 12 l with 4 l of this taken overnight; these estimates had doubled in the 2 months since referral. Due to the development of an increasingly severe frontal headache, her GP organised a CT head scan which was largely unremarkable aside from a ‘slight fullness’ to the pituitary gland. Pituitary...

A 42 year old man was referred to the acute medical unit with accelerated hypertension in March 2015. He presented with headache and blurred vision due to hypertensive retinopathy. Pre-treatment BP was 186/131 mmHg. Initial treatment included amlodipine, bendroflumethiazide and losartan. Prior to discharge, a 24 hour urine collection showed a significantly elevated urinary noradrenaline level (3091 nmol/d, reference 0–473). Referral was made to the cardiovascular risk cli...

An 87 year old man was referred to our endocrine service from the medicine for the elderly team for investigation of suspected hypoglycaemia. He had several co-morbidities but did not have diabetes mellitus. There was a 6 month history of ‘funny episodes’ characterised by lethargy, profuse sweating and confusion. The symptoms resolved a few minutes after eating. One such episode occurred while attending his GP who arranged for blood to be drawn. The plasma glucose wa...

A previously well 50-year-old female was admitted to the acute medical unit with a 4-month history of fatigue, anorexia, polyuria, polydipsia and arthralgia. She was found to be hypercalcaemic with a corrected calcium of 3.84 mmol/l and, unexpectedly, an extremely elevated parathyroid hormone reported at >200 pmol/l. Other results included an elevated alkaline phosphatase, hypophosphataemia and normal renal function. Treatment with intravenous 0.9% sodium chloride and pami...