Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Acromegaly is, in most cases, caused by growth hormone (GH) -secreting pituitary adenomas that lead to characteristic phenotypical changes. Its association with emty sella (ES) has been described and different theories has been given to explain such situation. Moreover, patients with acromegaly often develops different pathologies of the thyroid gland, however, the occurrence of grave’s disease (GD) is quite a rare situation. Here we report a case of a pati...

Introduction: Cushing’s disease (CD) is reported in 60-70% of all patients with Cushing’s syndrome (CS), but occurs only in approximately 33% of the reported CS cases in pregnancy. Nevertheless, despite its rarity, pregnancy in patients with CS can be troublesome because of the risk of maternal-fetal complications.Observation: A 28-year-old female patient was referred to our endocrinology department for a suspected CS with morphological alter...

Background: Thyroid hormone has an important role for skin growth and development. Alopecia is one of the clinical feature of autoimmune hypothyroidism or systemic autoimmune diseaseCase IllustrationA 18-year-old Indonesian woman presented with alopecia universalis. It started with a patchy hair loss which then progress to all of her body. At the age of 15 she had complaints of neck enlargement, palpitation, weight loss, and heat i...

The diagnosis of Cushing’s syndrome (CS) is based primarily on diagnostic tests evaluating the cortisol response to dexamethasone suppression. Tests based on oral administration of dexamethasone may be compromised by poor compliance. We evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of a novel intravenous dexamethasone suppression test (IDST). The test is performed by intravenous (iv) bolus injection of 8 mg dexamethasone, with blood cortisol determinations made before injection, then...

Quality life satisfaction is important for personal resources analysis and perspectives for coping with ilness.The aim of the study was to present a psychological portrait of a woman with Turner’s syndrome (TS) and assessing perspectives for increased well-being of such patients. The study concerns psychological aspects of TS women’s own assessment of their health and illness.The area of interest was:<p class="...

Introduction: Pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) is a precursor polypeptide which is cleaved to make adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) in the anterior pituitary. It is activated in Cushing’s disease. Current therapies for Cushing’s disease are inadequate. RNA interference (RNAi) allows highly specific and effective suppression of gene expression by use of short interfering RNAs (siRNAs).Method: In the current study we employed custom designed siRNAs...

A 30 year old gentleman was admitted to our department with symptoms of tiredness and weight loss over the past 3 weeks. He also gave a history of erectile dysfunction for several years. His only significant past history was asthma well controlled on inhalers. On examination he appeared tanned. There was no buccal or skin crease pigmentation. Smell sensation was normal and he had normal external genitalia and secondary sexual characteristics.Initial inve...

Introduction: Myxoedmea coma is an extreme expression of hypothyroidism with a high mortality rate. It is rarely associated with thyroid lymphoma.Case report: A 66-year-old lady presented acutely unwell with a two week history of cough and shortness of breath. She was hypothermic, hypoxic with clinical and radiological signs of pneumonia. Her TSH was 99.8 mU/L and T4 less than 5 pmol/L with strongly positive thyroid microsomal antibodies, raised WBC and ...

A 14 year old girl, with a family history of MEN1, presented with secondary amenorrhoea and weight gain. Biochemical investigation revealed raised 24-hour urinary free cortisol excretions (1455, 1190, 614 nmol/24 hours; normal <290) and failure of cortisol suppression following 48 hours of low dose (0.5 mg qds) dexamethasone (199 nmol/l to 202 nmol/l). High dose dexamethasone administration (2 mg qds) for 48 hours resulted in further suppression of serum cortisol to 49 nmo...

Background: Before synthetic cortisone was introduced, patients with Addison’s disease prolonged their lives by maintaining a high salt intake and taking plant based containing preparations affecting steroid metabolism. We report the case of someone who discovered this regime for herself.Case report: A 42 year old lady presented with a four week history of decreased energy, malaise, and postural dizziness. She was hyponatraemic (plasma sodium 126 mm...