Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Primary Hypoparathyroidism is a rare endocrine disorder characterized by hypocalcaemia associated with an inappropriately low parathyroid hormone concentration. As currently there are no UK guidelines for the management of this condition, we performed an audit comparing our performance with published European guidelines (1). These state that• Patients should be educated both t...

Untreated hypothyroidism in pregnancy is associated with severe neurodevelopmental delay. Based on rodent experiments, maternal T3 is said not cross the placenta and to have little if any role in fetal brain development.Case report: A 36-year-old female with known hypothyroidism treated only with liothyronine (T3) 20 μg TDS. attended the antenatal clinic. It was suggested that she changed to treatment with levothyroxine (T4) or a combination of T3 a...

A 41-year-old lady presented with a long history of very severe premenstrual dysphoria, commencing 2 weeks prior menstruation. Her symptoms included behavioural problems and in particular aggression, impaired memory, palpitation, bloating and diarrhoea. She also experience cyclical left head and left eye pain without visual symptoms. She was para 3+0 with a past medical history of polycystic ovary syndrome, eventually treated by ovarian diathermy. During pregnancy her symptoms...

A 23-year-old woman was referred with light periods and subfertility with a raised prolactin (1175 miu/l). Remaining pituitary function tests were normal. As she was now pregnant, investigations were postponed until post-pregnancy. Post-partum prolactin was 1823 miu/l and MRI pituitary demonstrated a 13.5 mm pituitary macroadenoma. Cabergoline was commenced but stopped due to a further pregnancy. At 22 weeks gestation she experienced left visual field loss. MRI showed...

A 29 year old woman, 21 weeks pregnant with no previous medical history was admitted with 5 days blurred vision in the left eye and headaches, worse in the morning and lying flat. Three weeks previously she had been treated with antibiotics for a group A strep infection. An urgent MRI suggested pituitary apoplexy with left optic chiasm nerve compression. IV hydrocortisone 100 mg TDS was commenced reduced to 20 mg TDS. Investigations showed TSH 0.2 mu/l, FT4 10.4 pmol/l, FT3 2....

A 60-year-old woman presented with 2 months of aching limbs and 2 weeks of nausea and a left sided neck mass. She was clinically euthyroid with a 5 cm non-tender left thyroid nodule. There was no cervical lymphadenopathy and the remainder of the examination was unremarkable. There was no family history of any endocrine disorder.Investigations showed serum TSH concentration 5.94 μ/l and serum free T4 concentration 12 pmol/l. Thyroid peroxi...

Previous published reports from Hong Kong have suggested iron markers may be increased in mothers with gestational diabetes. We examined this in our predominantly Caucasian population. Serum iron, ferritin and total iron saturation index (TSI)) where measured in sixty mothers with gestational diabetes compared to controls matched for age and parity. All participants were Caucasian. The study had LEC approval. Gestational diabetes was defined as glucose of 7.8 mmol/l or more in...