Endocrine Abstracts

The health burden associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), the hepatic manifestation of the metabolic syndrome, continues to escalate. Not only is NAFLD associated with significant liver-specific and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, but patients are at risk of the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC); a malignancy where the incidence continues to rise and there are very limited therapeutic strategies.Aldo-keto reductase ...

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a spectrum of disease spanning from simple steatosis to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) with risk of progression to fibrosis and eventually cirrhosis. Dysfunction of the gut-liver axis plays a role the progression to NASH. Intestinal damage and increased permeability can increase the delivery of pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), such as LPS and intact bacteria, to the liver where they can activate the TLR4 signall...

Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is one of the most common endocrine disorders affecting 6-15% of women of reproductive age. The syndrome is characterised by a variety of reproductive and metabolic features, including hyperandrogenism, chronic anovulation and hirsutism as well as insulin resistance, dyslipidaemia, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Specifically regarding NAFLD, androgen excess is hypothesised to have a direct effect on hepatic lipid storage, thus...

Background: The glucagon tolerance test (GTT) is used to diagnose growth hormone deficiency (GHD) in younger children or in patients where the insulin tolerance test is contraindicated. We assessed GTTs carried out over five years in a tertiary paediatric centre to assess growth hormone (GH) and cortisol axes. The aim was to assess at which time points the GH peak was observed, and assess whether any predictive value is gained from demographics or IGF-1....

Introduction: Graves’ disease (GD) is associated with a number of cardiovascular complications, including rhythm disturbances, mitral valve prolapse, pulmonary hypertension and heart failure. Pericardial effusion in the context of GD has only been reported in a small number of cases.Case: A 59-year-old gentleman presented with a 3-day history of dyspnoea and pleuritic chest pain. He had a previous history of GD 8 months ago, pulmonary embolism (PE),...

GH deficiency is recognised as a complication of adult traumatic brain injury (TBI) but there are conflicting data in children possibly due to the influences such as age at TBI, trauma mechanism but also by timing, method and criteria of hormonal evaluation.Objectives: To assess the long-term impact of TBI on the GH–IGF1 axis following TBI in childhood.Patients: Longitudinal study of 28 participants with a history of moderate/...

Purpose: Extended Forsteo Observational Study (ExFOS), a multinational, non-interventional, prospective, observational study to evaluate fracture outcomes, back pain, compliance and health-related quality of life in osteoporotic male and female patients treated with teriparatide (TPTD), has followed European Forsteo Observational Study (EFOS) on postmenopausal women, aiming to provide more data on the effect of the extension of treatment duration from 18 to 24 months and the n...

Objective: To identify incidental parathyroidectomy predictors in thyroid surgery.Methods: All thyroid operations during 4 years were reviewed (n=1010). Patients were divided in those with (parathyroidectomy group) and without incidental parathyroidectomy (no-parathyroidectomy group).Results: Incidental parathyroidectomy occurred in 198 patients (19.6%). The groups were comparable in age, thyroid weight and pathology, hypert...

Background-objective: Although the harmonic scalpel has been shown to be safe and effective in thyroid surgery, several surgeons consider the previously available instruments to be large and cumbersome, especially in terms of dissection capabilities. To this context, an innovative technical improvement of the device for thyroid surgery has very recently been implemented and has been made available in 2008. Utilization of this new device, however, has not been evaluated in any ...

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a spectrum of disease ranging from simple intrahepatic lipid accumulation to fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). 5β-reductase (AKR1D1) is a liver enzyme that catalyses a fundamental step in bile acid (BA) synthesis. Both BAs and BA intermediates are established as potent regulators of metabolic and proliferative phenotype. We have hypothesised that AKR1D1 plays a crucial regulatory role in NAFLD and HCC. Hu...