Endocrine Abstracts

Patients with neuroendocrine tumours require co-ordinated multidisciplinary and multimodal management, with appropriate referral pathways and access to timely expert care. This is exemplified by the European Neuroendocrine Tumour Society (ENETS) Centres of Excellence (CoE). There are forty CoE in Europe, ten of which are in the UK. The bar to achieve CoE status is set high, and the standards used for the audit assessments are appropriate to deliver best care even where centre ...

Recent years have seen major advances in our understanding of the causes of adrenal and pituitary Cushing’s syndrome. Careful molecular analyses have yielded new information about the underlying cellular mechanisms leading to the excess secretion of ACTH from the pituitary or cortisol from the adrenal. Unpicking these mechanisms has allowed proposals for new clinical trials of medical treatments for Cushing’s disease. Intriguingly, inherited germ line mutations appea...

Aim: We explored the mechanistic interactions and potential therapeutic benefits of curcumin and quercetin co-administration with a specific focus on Glycogen synthase kinase 3 GSK-3 activity.Methods: We hypothesize that excess GSK-3 accumulation in the substantia nigra is driven by oxidative stress and aim to test the effects of these compounds on the localization and activity of GSK-3 in the well-established model organism Drosophila melanogaster. We p...

Metastasis to the pituitary gland is a rare occurrence. Here we discuss our experience managing a patient with pituitary neuroendocrine metastasis who first presented with ocular symptoms. A 65-year-old lady presented in July 2015 with progressive diplopia. An MRI scan revealed a pituitary mass lesion with aggressive features and two abnormal enhancing nodules within the brain white matter, raising suspicion of metastatic disease. Radiotherapy was commenced on the basis that t...

All those involved in delivery of health care are obliged to deliver safe and effective management for patients. Effectiveness is often achieved where specialists for the condition are involved. In contrast, patient-safety depends of recognition of the condition in question and then use of appropriate treatment and management, regardless of who is seeing the patient. This is particularly the case where there may be a rare disease confused for a common one, and where the treatm...

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common reproductive problem in women of childbearing age attending an endocrine clinic with a reported prevalence of between 4-8 %. The classical symptoms result from excess ovarian androgen production and chronic anovulation. Ovarian ultrasound shows more than 10 follicles, 2-10mm in diameter. A common presentation in the clinic can be menstrual dysfunction but the most characteristic feature of the syndrome is the hirsutism which ...

Thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy, and accounts for between 5 and 10% of thyroid nodules biopsied in endocrine services. As per the Global Cancer Observatory, the incidence of thyroid cancer in Bahrain is 2.12 cases per 100 000 people, which is less than the neighbouring countries of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The purpose of the study is to investigate the relationship between thyroid cancer and obesity in Bahrain, where 28.9% of males and 38.2% of females a...

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 ...

Mitochondrial disorders are the result of mitochondrial respiratory chain dysfunction and caused by mutations of genes encoded by the nuclear or the mitochondrial DNA. They affect approximately 1 in 5000 of the population and are the most common group of inborn errors of metabolism. Most of them involve multiple organ systems with predominant central nervous system features including ptosis, external ophthalmoplegia and sensorineural hearing loss.Introdu...

There are several regulatory systems the body that keep body functions, like body temperature and blood glucose, constant. In this study we have added and removed weight loads from experimental animals and measured the effects on biological body weight. The results of these experiments indicate that there is a novel regulatory mechanism to keep the body weight constant, mostly by adjusting the body fat mass. The mechanism was dependent on intact bone cells. We hypothesize that...