Endocrine Abstracts

Background and significance: Endogenous Cushing’s syndrome is a rare disease entity approximately 13 cases per million population. In Asia, and specifically in the Philippines incidence is unknown. As well, it’s clinical presentation among Filipinos is not well described. The local epidemiology of obesity, diabetes and hypertension are different from other countries. These conditions are the usual initial differential diagnosis for Cushing’s syndrome. This repor...

TSH receptor antibodies (TRAB) are now routinely measured in patients with Graves’ disease (GD) to aid diagnosis. Thyroid peroxidase antibodies (TPO) sometimes co-exist in these patients but not always. Some studies have suggested a functional and prognostic role for these antibodies. However, the phenotypic characteristics of the patient with positive TPO (with or without TRAB) and the influence of TPO on the clinical course of GD are not known.A r...

Aim to elucidate the factors influencing length of stay (LOS) in patients with hyponatraemia admitted to an acute medical unit (AMU).Methodology: a prospective study of patients admitted to AMU at West Middlesex University Hospital from November 2009 to June 2011. A proforma was completed for each patient by the registrar on his duty days.Results: 70 patients were identified with a mean age of 69.2 years. 41 (59%) were female. 20 (...

Hypopituitarism is a recognised complication of pituitary and hypothalamic pathology. It can also be a consequence, less commonly, of traumatic brain injury. It has never been described in patients following recovery from a cardiac arrest. We present a case history of hypopituitarism following successful cardiopulmonary resuscitation for a ventricular tachycardia (VT) cardiac arrest. A 51 year old patient with known prolonged QT (Romano ward) syndrome and chronic obstructive a...

Aims: The use of glucose meter downloads provides statistics (mean blood glucose level, S.D.) which may have a role in outpatient Diabetes monitoring. We aimed to compare these measures with the current gold standard, HbA1c.Methods: Thirty-eight patients had blood glucose readings downloaded from their monitoring device (Accuchek) at clinic visits over 25 months. Statistical analysis from the Accuchek Software package was per...

Aims: The use of glucose meter downloads in outpatients enables clinicians to monitor how frequently children with type 1 diabetes mellitus are testing their blood glucose level on a daily basis. We tested the hypothesis that increased frequency of blood glucose testing improves HbA1c value, the current gold standard in monitoring diabetic control.Methods: Thirty-eight patients had their glucose meter (Accuchek) downloaded at outpatient clinic vis...

Introduction: The symptoms and signs of thyroid disease can be subtle and non-specific resulting in the indiscriminate use of thyroid function tests (TFT) for diagnosis. The resulting rise in the number of TFTs has raised issues about cost–effectiveness of such a practice. We set out to identify whether using specific clinical indications was an effective way to identify patients with abnormal TFTs and to determine any demographic data that would support unrestricted TFT ...

Background: Radionuclide thyroid scanning using technetium pertechnetate (Tc99m) is a useful aid in the differential diagnosis of benign thyroid disease. It is particularly useful in the differentiation of the causes of a thyrotoxic biochemical picture, e.g. viral thyroiditis, toxic nodular disease or Grave’s disease. This has implications for long-term management plans. However, its cost and exposure to radiation necessitate the need to justify its use in the ...

Background: Telemedicine use has increased rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic, replacing many face-to-face (FTF) consultations. FTF consultations are associated with increased CO2 emissions (CO2em) from travel to clinics. This study evaluates the triple bottom line of children and young people’s (CYP) and parent or guardian experience of a new telemedicine service, estimated CO2em saving from reduced travel and cost saving to families.Methods: Dat...

Background: Abnormal uterine artery Doppler (UtAD) at 23 weeks is considered to be a risk factor for FGR. However, the incidence of being born small for gestational age (SGA) in those with abnormal Doppler is not defined.Aims: 1. To determine the incidence of birthweight<2nd centile (BW<C2nd) in pregnancies at high risk of FGR.2. To determine the effect of specific antenatal FGR risk factors on fetal growth traje...