Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: A joint ‘late effects’ clinic for follow-up of survivors of childhood cancer has been in operation in our institution since 1995. In patients who have undergone cranial irradiation, dynamic anterior pituitary function testing using a standard insulin tolerance test (ITT) or, if contraindicated, a glucagon or arginine/GHRH test was undertaken at around five yearly intervals.Methods: Case note review was undertaken for 24 patients (...

A 34-year-old female was seen in the joint diabetic antenatal clinic during her second pregnancy. She had a very unfortunate first pregnancy, which resulted in a still birth following a traumatic delivery. She also had a large post-partum haemorrhage causing Sheehan’s syndrome. Hormone replacement therapy had been commenced, including hydrocortisone, thyroxine and growth hormone (GH). Pre-treatment quality of life assessment in GH deficient adults score (Qol-AGHDA) 21, an...

A 38-year-old lady was referred to our endocrinology department with headache, elevated prolactin concentration and intolerance to cabergoline by the gynaecologist. She was found to have elevated prolactin whilst investigating for secondary amenorrhoea. She described her headaches to be worse on cough, sneezing and laughing. There was no evidence for raised intracranial pressure clinically and no visual field defect was identified. Prolactin was 3194 miu/l, however there was n...

Pituitary gland has an influence on erythropoiesis. Anaemia is thought to be due to loss of thyrotrophic and adrenotrophic hormones. Testosterone is also known to stimulate erythropoiesis. Here we present a patient with long standing iron deficiency anaemia, which corrected with management of hypopituitarism.A 72-year-old gentleman was under regular review at the diabetic clinic with type 2 diabetes mellitus. He had a background medical history of COPD, ...

A 12-year-old girl was referred to the endocrinology clinic for investigation of short stature. She had signs of early puberty yet had precocious menstruation associated with menorrhagia. She gave a recent history of recurrent epistaxis. There was no family history of a bleeding disorder. She reported cold intolerance, dry skin and a tendency for hair to fall.On examination she was pale with no evidence of purpura or significant bruising. There was no en...

Ectopic secretion of adrenocorticotropin (ACTH), from sites such as small cell lung cancer (SCLC), results in severe Cushing's syndrome. ACTH is cleaved from pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC). The syndrome occurs when the highly tissue-specific promoter of POMC is activated. This promoter lies within a defined CpG island. CpG islands are usually considered to be unmethylated in all tissues. We hypothesised that changes in promoter DNA methylation might direct aberrant express...

Mediastinal location of a functional parathyroid adenoma is a rare but a well recognised entity and Tc-99M sestamibi scan is an established imaging technique for the succesful localization of such tissues with a sensitivity and specificity of more than 90%. Here we report an unusual case of primary hyperparathyroidism presenting with a 3-cm mediastinal mass with no evidence of abnormal uptake of the isotope and subsequent resolution of the mass on further imaging.<p class...

A 77 year old lady was referred by her GP after she was found to have a 6x5x5 cm diameter solid mass in the right adrenal gland on ultrasound scan. The mass showed significant internal vascularity on colour doppler and the radiologist felt it could be aphaeochromocytoma. She had a long history of hypertension which her GP had been finding difficult to control over the past 2 years.Type 2 diabetes was diagnosed 2 years ago and she...

It is well established that catecholamines have potent actions on adrenocortical function and steroidogenesis in different species. The effect of these substances on steroid production of the human adrenal cell line H295R is the subject of this study. H295R is the first adrenocortical cell line capable of secreting the normal range of adrenal steroid products (i.e. mineralocorticoids, glucocorticoids and adrenal androgens) and since free of chromaffin cells, it appears to be a...

Despite well-established sex differences in blood glucose homeostasis, female mice are highly underrepresented in preclinical diabetes research. Reasons for this may be the milder diabetic phenotype often seen in female mice and/or the assumption that the estrus cycle causes excessive variability in blood glucose concentrations. During this workshop talk we will discuss these points and the importance of accounting for sex differences. Using continuous glucose monitoring techn...