Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Thyroid Storm is a life-threatening but rare (incidence 0.2 per 100 000) disease state which presents as an extreme form of thyrotoxicosis. A hyper-metabolic state resulting from excessive thyroid hormone release which can be precipitated by both thyroidal and non-thyroidal illness.Case: In this case we discuss a 72 year old female with previously treated Graves disease who presented in thyroid storm one week after annual flu vaccination. O...

Background: Transient hypocalcaemia post parathyroid or thyroidectomy is common. Locally, post operative follow up was Ad-hoc with weekly visits where one of the Endocrine team would reduce Adcal D3© or 1α-Hydroxycholecalciferol doses to maintain eucalcaemia. This was frustrating for staff and patients who spent weeks and sometimes months having weekly blood tests. In an effort to improve the experience we piloted a pathway based on fixed dose replacement and day 1 p...

Case History: A 60 year old female presented with anxiety and weight loss. Serum free T4 was 50 pmol/l (normal 12-23). Despite restoring T4 to normal, symptoms persisted and included flushing attacks. Urine 5-HIAA was elevated (182 micro moles/24 hrs; normal 0-40).Tests were done to locate the primary and secondary carcinoid tumour.Investigations: CT of thorax and abdomen, and ultrasound of abdomen were negative. Routine biochemistry and haematology were...

The capacity of the adrenal to produce steroids is controlled in part through the transcriptional regulation of steroid enzymes. Steroidogenic factor 1 (SF-1), an orphan nuclear receptor is thought to be central to the transcriptional regulation of all steroid hydroxylase enzymes. Recently co-regulatory proteins have been implicated in the modulation of nuclear receptor transcriptional activity. We hypothesised that classic and novel secretogogues, including forskolin, angiote...

INTRODUCTION:True hermaphroditism is rare but has been reported in more than 400 individuals.Thediagnosis requires the presence of both ovarian and testicular tissue in either the same or opposite gonads.The external genitalia may simulate those of either a male or a female or may be ambiguous.Diagnosis and treatment at an early age is important .CASE REPORT:A 14 years old phenotypic ma...

Gender Identity Disorder (GID) has been recognised since the 1950s. The reported prevalence for GID is up to 1 in 30,000 in men and 1 in 100,000 in women. We reviewed 16 patients who were determined to have met the diagnostic criteria for GID and were referred to our clinic for advice on hormonal treatment (HT) - the second phase of the triadic treatment protocol for gender reassignment.The mean age of the group is 32years (Range 18 to 51years). Thirteen have male to femal...

Recent analysis has shown that up to 18 percent of the Irish population are obese; a further 40 percent are overweight. Orlistat (Xenical)is a gastrointestinal lipase inhibitor that limits absorption of ingested fat thus aiding weight reduction. We report the use of orlistat outside the clinical trial setting in Ireland from 7 April 2000 to 30 June 2001.A total of 5,251 patients (4,376 women, 875 men) attended 240 weight management clinics (229 in primary care and 11 in se...

INTRODUCTION: Hypertension with hypokalaemia suggests primaryaldosteronism, which is confirmed by high plasma aldosterone with low renin concentrations. CT and MRI scans frequently fail to detect small primary aldosteronomas, and may incorrectly identify ' incidentalomas', so adrenal vein sampling is needed.AIM: To review the clincal and biochemical results on 12 patients who had catheter sampling of adrenal and ivc aldosterone(A) and Cortisol (C)with calculation of Aldosteron...

Prolactin (PRL) exerts pleiotropic physiological effects in various cells and tissues, and is mainly considered as a regulator of reproduction and cell growth. Null mutation of the PRL receptor (R) gene leads to female sterility due to a complete failure of embryo implantation. Pre-implantatory egg development, implantation and decidualization in the mouse appear to be dependent on ovarian rather than uterine PRLR expression, since progesterone replacement permits the rescue o...

Objective: Evidence shows that IGF-1 receptor (IGF-1R) antagonism reduces the inflammation and proptosis that occur in thyroid eye disease (TED). VRDN-001 is a full antagonist to IGF-1R, and VRDN-003 is a next-generation, half-life extended version of VRDN-001 designed to enable subcutaneous (SC) administration. We compared the in vivo pharmacokinetic (PK) parameters of VRDN-001 and VRDN-003 and used a PK model to simulate potential VRDN-003 SC dosing regimens.<p ...