Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Since the DCCT demonstrated that improved glycaemic control reduced complications the goal of diabetes management has been to maintain HbA1c as close to normal as possible. Recent changes by the laboratory to our HbA1c assay, combined with the debate about deanonymised publication of clinic’s HbA1c results, creating the potential for ‘league tables’, focussed our attention on the variation between HbA1c assays.Clinical data: Ou...

Background: Patients attending our A+E department with hypoglycaemia have a number of samples collected including metabolic investigations, growth hormone (GH) and cortisol. Most of these children have an intercurrent illness. There is a paucity of published data examining how cortisol and GH respond to ‘physiological hypoglycaemia’.Aims: To assess if peak levels of GH and cortisol correlate with the degree of hypoglycaemia and to evaluate how ...

Growth hormone treatment (GHT) is used to improve height, and potentially quality of life (QOL), in children with abnormal growth patterns. Previous QOL research suggests children with acquired growth hormone deficiency (AGHD) benefit more from GHT than those treated for other conditions.The aim was to determine child and parent reported QOL change over 1 year depending on GHT and diagnosis.One hundred and twenty-two children (mean...

Background: The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE, 2002) suggests that measurement of quality of life (QOL) is necessary to assess the efficacy of GH treatment (GHT). A pilot study (Sheppard 2006) showed a greater improvement in QOL over the first 6 months of GHT for patients with acquired GH deficiency (AGHD) compared with idiopathic GH deficiency (IGHD).Method: In view of this, a longitudinal research study was set up to measure changes ...

Endocrinopathies are amongst the most common complications of thallasaemia, which is a hereditary disorder of haemoglobin synthesis and excessive iron deposition is thought to be the main reason.Our hospital serves a multiethnic population and consequently we see a substantial number of patients with thallasaemia who are screened for endocrine complications. Those found to have endocrine problems are reviewed in our joint thallasaemia-endocrine clinic. B...

The role of prolactin in the regulation of ovarian folliculogenesis and in particular it's relationship to follicular atresia is as yet unclear; although a decline in prolactin concentrations in bovine follicular fluid appears to be related to morphological signs of atresia. In addition to the pituitary and endometrium sources of prolactin, there is also a local ovarian source of prolactin. Hence a potential autocrine mechanism of prolactin action may exist in the ovary. We in...

IGFs and IGFBPs have an important role in folliculogenesis, with the profile of IGFBPs being different in healthy and atretic follicles. In particular, IGFBP-4, which is a potent inhibitor of steroidogenesis, is preferentially proteolysed in healthy follicles. We therefore investigated the production and activation of IGFBP-4 protease in human follicular cells.Follicles of 3-25mm were dissected from 13 pairs of ovaries collected with ethics committee app...

An increased number of medium-sized antral follicles is one of the characteristic features of polycystic ovaries (PCO) but little is known of the preantral stages of follicle development. The aim of this work was to explore small preantral follicle development in ovulatory and anovulatory PCO and to compare it with that in normal ovaries. Small ovarian cortical biopsies were obtained with informed consent and local ethics committee approval from 27 women with PCO, 13 anovulato...