Endocrine Abstracts

Objectives: Conflicting data of the benefits of GH replacement improving psychological and physical well being is available, though open GH studies generally agree on an overall improvement. For growth hormone deficient patients to continue on therapy after evaluation there should be a 7 point improvement in their QoL-AGHDA, as documented in the NICE guidelines. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of 0.4 mg of GH on QoL in severe GH deficient patients in a double...

Background: Growth hormone (GH) is known to have stimulatory effects on bone tissue through a complex interaction of GH, IGF-1 and IGFBPs. The gonadal status is also thought to influence bone metabolism. Bone mass in patients with acromegaly reflects the long-time effects of GH excess on bone. However, data on bone status in acromegaly have been conflicting.Objective: The object of the study was to examine the impact of chronic GH excess on bone mass and...

Objectives: There is strong epidemiological evidence that insulin resistance confers a significantly increased risk of cardiovascular disease independent of other cardiovascular risk factors. The aim of the study is to compare the insulin resistance levels in metabolic syndrome of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) with that of type 2 diabetes (T2DM).Methods: The biological variation of IR was assessed by measuring IR at four day intervals on 10 consecut...

Cellular replacement therapy has already shown clinical efficacy in human patients with Parkinson's' and Huntington's diseases. However, this currently relies on a continuous supply of tissue from early first trimester human foetuses and therefore it will be difficult to translate into a widespread therapy. Neural stem cells are self-renewing cells found in both the developing and adult nervous system that can be expanded ex vivo in defined medium and differentiated into all t...

Introduction: We have previously demonstrated that APPL1 maintains glucose homeostasis by promoting both actions and secretion of insulin. Although APPL2 is a close homolog of APPL1, the physiological function of APPL2 is vaguely characterized. Thus, we generated a knockout (KO) mouse model in which APPL2 is deleted in pancreatic β-cells and hypothalamus (which is called APPL2 KO mice) to investigate its role in glucose and energy metabolism.Methods...

The transient receptor potential canonical channels (TRPC) are a new family of Ca2+-permeable cationic channels controlling the Ca2+ influx response to the activation of the G-protein coupled receptor or the depletion of the internal Ca2+ store, which is related to the cellular signalling mechanisms of many hormones or growth factors. The role of TRPC channels in cancer development is still unclear. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the expres...

We report the use of Gamma knife radiosurgery (GK) to 15 somatotroph adenomas. Eight patients had refractory acromegaly despite maximal conventional treatments: all had undergone conventional radiotherapy (CRT), mean interval between CRT and GK 15.6 years. Six had undergone surgery, two on more than one occasion. Five were receiving somatostatin analog therapy, one was receiving dopamine agonist therapy, one was on pegvisomant alone. All had radiologically defined disease, wel...

Introduction: Diagnosis of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) is often a challenge and involves biochemical characterisation and anatomic localisation of the tumour. Wherever feasible, curative surgical excision is the treatment of choice.Materials and Methods: Twenty four consecutive patients with pancreatic NETs were referred for consideration of surgery over a six-year period (1999–2005). Following use of multi imaging modalities to localis...

Rationale: Octreotide is known to shrink acromegalic tumours in vivo. However, the mechanism for this is unclear. To investigate the mechanism of shrinkage we used dynamic contrast enhanced MR imaging (DCE-MRI) to visualise the vascular components within the somatotroph adenomas.Subjects & Methods: Six patients with confirmed acromegaly comprising 4 microadenomas (all male) and 2 macroadenomas (1 male, 1 female) were recruited. All patients we...

The effect of growth hormone (GH) replacement on thyroid function in hypopituitary patients has only been studied in small groups of children and adults with conflicting results.We aimed to define the effect and clinical significance of adult GH replacement on thyroid status in a large cohort of 243 patients with hypopituitarism due to various causes. 84 patients were considered euthyroid before GH treatment and 159 patients had central hypothyroidism an...