Endocrine Abstracts

Aims: To validate the questionnaire designed by O’Connor et al. (2018) and investigate the association between vitamin D knowledge and serum 25-OH-D. Methods: Face and content validity were assessed by a panel of experts and public (n=8). The final questionnaire comprised of four sections; demographics (12 questions), knowledge (13 questions), attitudes toward sun exposure and vitamin D (11 questions) and perceptions of supplementation ...

Background: In December 2017, a Nurse-Led AI clinic was introduced at University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff for the evaluation and follow-up of these patients. The clinic pathway was based upon the 2016 European Society for Endocrinology (ESE) guidelines on the management of adrenal incidentalomas.Aim: To evaluate the effectiveness of this new service and the cost-saving benefit.Methods: Electronic and paper-based patient records w...

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....

Background: Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare malignant tumor with a poor prognosis. The only curative therapy is complete surgery (R0). A 5-year local recurrence and distant metastasis rate after R0 is 80–85%. Mitotane is widely used as an adjuvant treatment in patients with a high risk of recurrence. According to the most studies, it can delay and possibly prevent a recurrence of the disease in 35–50%. However, its efficacy is controversial, as well as the o...

Background: Secondary hyperparathyroidism (SHPT) is severe complication of chronic kidney disease, characterized by high serum parathyroid hormone (PTH), parathyroid gland hyperplasia, and disturbances in mineral metabolism. Effective management of SHPT includes measures to prevent hyperphosphataemia and excess PTH, to maintain serum calcium within the normal range. In dialysis patients with severe SHPT, medical treatment may fail and parathyroidectomy (PTX) is indicated for d...

Objective: Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) is associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity including hypertension with a prevalence ranging from 40 to 65%. The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) is a key system in the regulation of sodium/potassium balance, volume homeostasis as well as blood pressure. There is increasing evidence of interactions between calcium and calcium-regulatory hormones with the RAAS. The aim of this study was to investigate the associ...

Hypothesis: High doses of vitamin D (VitD) improves dermal microcirculation (MC) in diabetic patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and diabetic neuropathy (DN).Purpose: To study the effect of different VD doses on skin MC values in T2DM patients and DN.Materials and methods: Sixty-two non-smoking T2DM patients with DN were randomized into two groups: Group 1 received 5000 IU (G1) and Group 2 received 40000 IU (G2) of cholec...

Background: DiGeorge syndrome (DGS) is the rare genetic disorder caused by a 22q11.2 chromosome microdeletion. The main clinical features are associated with defective development of the pharyngeal pouch system and usually include congenital heart disease, hypoplasia of thymus resulting in immune deficiency and hypoparathyroidism. Also DGS patient has characteristic long face with narrow palpebral fissures, broad nasal bridge, micrognathia and small mouth, small dysmorphic ear...

Background: Approximately 25% of patients with parathyroid carcinoma (PC) have metastases; the most frequent sites include cervical lymph nodes (30%) and lungs (40%). Less common are liver, bones and brain. Surgical resection of local or distant metastases (if possible) provides the best control of hypercalcemia and enhances long-term survival.Case description: A 70-year old patient was admitted to hospital with a primary hyperparathyroidism (PH). He did...

Objective: To establish possible associations of the polymorphism of the insulin receptor substrate−1 (IRS-1) gene with the severity of various components of metabolic syndrome in patients with arterial hypertension (AH). We examined 187 patients with AH aged 45–55 years (with history of hypertension less than 5 years, unsystematic administration of antihypertensive drugs and/or failure to achieve target blood pressure (BP) levels when prescribing drug therapy). The...