Endocrine Abstracts

Anabolic agents are used to enhance performance through their effects on muscle mass, strength, and stamina. The prevalence of anabolic steroid use is difficult to quantify amongst the general population, but estimates derived from anonymous questionnaire studies in various populations suggest use may be common. Up to 4% of 18 years old American males have reported use at least once. Reported use of these agents rises significantly amongst army recruits and further still in el...

Improvements in cancer therapy have led to increasing numbers of patients surviving complex conditions. A multidisciplinary approach using new treatment modalities allow more aggressive therapy and a greater risk in the long-term to pituitary function. Damage to the hypothalamic pituitary axis has traditionally resulted from the underlying lesion, surgical intervention and radiotherapy. Traditional chemotherapeutic agents have not been implicated. The effect radiation has upon...

Overall survival following childhood cancer is 70% and for some conditions in excess of 90%. This success has come at a cost; 60–70% of patients have one or more on-going medical problem. The most frequent conditions encountered are endocrine in nature, ranging from hypothyroidism to panhypopituitarism. In addition, the prevalence of other medical problems is also increased including heart failure and second malignancy. Consequently this cohort of patients require life-lo...

Introduction: The 2006 Endocrine Society – testosterone therapy in adult men guidelines were audited against the clinical practice at a UK teaching hospital endocrine department. The aim of the audit was to determine whether patients were undergoing appropriate screening tests for prostate cancer and polycythaemia as described in these guidelines.Method: Patients were initially identified by searching the endocrine clinic letter database for the nam...

Background: Increasing numbers of children and adults are surviving cancer and living with the consequences of their disease or its treatment. The commonest long term consequences observed following childhood cancer are endocrine and there is a growing body of evidence indicating that adults treated for malignant disease are also at risk of endocrine dysfunction.Aim: To determine the involvement of Endocrinologists in the management of cancer survivors a...

A 61-year-old man presented to his primary care service with complains of frequent hot flushes, dizziness and headache. Following initial screening, an incidental pituitary lesion was diagnosed on computed tomography (CT) scan and hence was referred to specialist review. Further detailed history revealed similar presentation with dizziness and hot flushes two and a half years ago. He was then diagnosed with essential hypertension after a negative work-up for Cushing disease. H...

Aim: To evaluate the current service provisions and provide action plan for improvement within the YAE service.Methods: A friends and family questionnaire given to all patients attending the YAE service from October 2018 – January 2019. Survey questions included: whether they thought this was a good clinic for friends and family to be looked after in, what we did well and what we could do better. For YA patients transferring from children’s s...

The most effective means of treating macroprolactinomas, including those associated with significant visual loss at presentation, is with dopamine agonist (DA) therapy. Improvement in visual function often occurs within days of commencing DA therapy, and usually precedes significant reductions in prolactin (PRL) concentrations and may predate significant evidence of tumour volume reduction by months or years. The temporal association between PRL concentration reductions and tu...

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is the commonest malignancy to occur during childhood. Treatment protocols included prophylactic cranial radiotherapy at doses of 18-24Gy. Radiation to the hypothalamic-pituitary axis causes hypopituitarism, the severity of which depends upon the dose and time from treatment. Adults who received 24Gy up to 25 years ago have been shown to be GH deficient, those who received 18Gy were not. Other pituitary function was reported be normal. The purpose...

Lymphocytic hypophysitis (LyH) is a rare condition often associated with pregnancy (usually presenting in the last month of pregnancy or in the first two post-partum months). We describe a very rare case of recurrent LyH during two pregnancies.A 25-years old woman presented in 7/2003 with a 6-week history of headaches and a 2-week history of visual deterioration whilst 38 weeks pregnant. Bitemporal hemianopia was co...