Endocrine Abstracts

There are 126 departments of adult endocrinology in England. We will be producing a national report towards the end of the year joint with the Society for Endocrinology. Endocrinology is not properly coded in hospital data systems. This is because of misattribution to general medicine or diabetes. Commonly accepted clinical standards are not being applied uniformly (e.g., steroid sick day provision). We have looked at surgical volumes. There are a large number of places where ...

Background: Pituitary adenomas (PA) are considered very rare conditions, with an estimated prevalence of 25 cases/100 000 inhabitants. However, community-based studies on the prevalence of PA are currently scant.Aim: To ascertain the prevalence of PA and the characteristics of the patients diagnosed with them in a large population of inhabitants.Methods: A survey on the GP surgeries of Banbury (Oxfordshire, UK) covering 89 334 inha...

Background: Pituitary adenomas (PA) have traditionally been considered as very rare conditions, with an estimated prevalence of 25 cases/100 000 inhabitants. However, these data have been extracted either from cancer registries or from hospital databases and therefore, may not be accurate.Aim: To ascertain the prevalence of PA and the characteristics of the patients diagnosed with them in a large population of inhabitants.Methods: ...

Background: Levothyroxine is the standard treatment for central hypothyroidism (CH). Studies assessing the optimal dose are limited and include subjects with other untreated pituitary hormone deficits, affecting the interpretation of results. A reliable comparison with the dose used in primary hypothyroidism (PH) has not been reported.Aims: To evaluate daily and body-weight-adapted levothyroxine dose (BWA-dose) in a cohort of patients with CH on appropri...

Background: Patients with uncomplicated hyperthyroidism referred by their GP to our Department had a waiting time of 3–4 months before been seen by a Consultant. As a result of this, funding was provided for setting-up a Thyroid Nurse-Led Clinic (TNLC) aiming to resolve the problem. The clinic started running in May 2005.Aim: To assess the benefits of the TNLC for the NHS.Patients and methods: The data of visits of patients se...

Background: A Thyroid Nurse-Led Clinic (TNLC) was set up within the Department of Endocrinology in Oxford aiming primarily to reduce waiting times of patients with uncomplicated thyrotoxicosis from 3 to 4 months to 2 to 4 weeks. It proved to be a cost effective measure.Aims: To explore the patients’ perspective on the provision of care and on the service delivery of the TNLC.Patients and methods: A structured questionnaire wit...

Introduction: Metyrapone is used as holding treatment in patients with Cushing’s syndrome awaiting definitive treatment or as adjunctive treatment following pituitary irradiation. The metyrapone day curve is used to assess the adequacy of suppression of cortisol synthesis, and in our institution involves taking four blood cortisol samples at 9 am, 12 pm, 3 pm and 6 pm respectively. A mean result between 200 and 300 nmol/l is deemed satisfactory.Aims...

The value of the somatostatin analogues in the treatment of acromegaly is well established. The experience on their efficacy in gigantism is limited involving the administration of octreotide. To our knowledge, no such cases treated by lanreotide have been reported.An 18-year old student presented to the A&E with a month history of blurred vision and headaches. CT showed a suprasellar pituitary tumour with obstructive hydrocephalus. Emergency inserti...

UK National Acromegaly Register collects data on routine clinical practice in 34 centres. We analysed all GH and IGF1 data to assess adequacy of control & responses to medical treatment (Rx) with somatostatin analogs (SMS) & dopamine agonists (DA). Methods: Under program control, GH records (basal, profile or GTT) were correlated with IGF1, tumour size, Rx, surgery (TSS) & radiotherapy (RT) in the database, then processed in Excel to derive summary data for each pa...

Background: Rathke’s cleft cysts (RCC) are benign, cystic lesions arising from remnants of Rathke’s pouch and reported in 13–22% of normal autopsies. Their prognosis after surgical intervention is not clearly defined.Aim: To analyse the outcome of patients who presented to our Department with RCC between 1/1977-3/2009.Patients and methods: Thirty-three cases were identified [13 males/20 females, median age at diagnos...