Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Thyrotoxic crisis is a rare and life threatening condition requiring urgent medical intervention. Intrahepatic cholestasis, hypoglycaemia and pancytopenia are known but uncommon presentations in thyrotoxic crisis.Case presentation: A 71 year old Sri Lankan female with a background history of diabetes presented to a tertiary care centre with severe hypoglycaemic episodes despite being off oral hypoglycaemic agents, weight loss of 6 kg, palpita...

Objective: The performance of two functional bioassays and two immunoassays for the measurement of TSHR-Ab was assessed in this multicenter study.Methods: Two-hundred two subjects (median age 54 years, 162 female, 80%), with well-documented thyroid disorders and controls were prospectively enrolled in a consecutive, unselected manner. Antibody measurements were performed in a blinded manner using the Bridge (Siemens, performed at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock ...

Objectives: Thyroid peroxidase (TPO) is a key enzyme in the synthesis of thyroid hormones and is a target for autoimmune responses in autoimmune thyroid disease. TPO autoantibody (TPOAb) binding epitopes have been mapped on the peroxidase domain (POD) and the complement control protein like domain (CCP). This study aimed to solve the molecular structures of TPO bound to TPO antibodies.Methods: An extracellular domain (ECD) of human TPO (amino acids; aa 1...

Background: Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) inhibitors decrease the degradation of low–density lipoprotein (LDL) receptors, thereby increasing the removal of LDL particles from the blood and significantly reducing LDL cholesterol levels by an average of 65%. Blom et al. showed changes in vitamin E, adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), cortisol, total testosterone, and estradiol in EVOLOCUMAB (PCSK9 inhibitor)–treated patients 1. Ther...

Osteoporosis is a metabolic bone disease characterized by low bone mass leading to fractures that are associated with high mortality, morbidity and growing health care costs. Diagnosis of osteoporosis relies on dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) to measure bone areal density, which is constantly reported as a poor surrogate of bone fracture risk.Bone tissue is a composite of collagen, mineral and water, which multi-scale organization is increasingly...

Our initial studies suggested that plurihormonal cells are constantly found in early embryonic stages of human pituitary but are very rare later.Aim: A quantitative evaluation and morphological characterization of these plurihormonal cells.Methods: Pituitaries from therapeutically aborted human fetuses of 8–24 weeks, gestational age were fixed (with ethical permission) by immersion in 4% buffered formaldehyde. One-μm-thic...

With the cloning of the gene encoding pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) it became apparent that several other peptides distinct from ACTH would be co-secreted from the anterior pituitary into the circulation. This begged the question as to whether these peptides have any biological actions on the adrenal, or to that matter any other tissue. Over the past two decades it has become apparent that the N-terminal fragment known as pro-gamma-MSH plays a role in adrenal physiology.<p c...

Recent studies support a causal relationship between radiation, formation of RET/PTC rearrangements, and development of papillary carcinomas. The evidence that RET/PTC rearrangements result directly from radiation-induced DNA damage is compelling, and further substantiated by evidence that predisposition to radiation-induced intrachromosomal inversions involving the RET gene may be favored by the three-dimensional organization of human chromosome 10 during interphase. Thus, il...

IntroductionPseudohypoparathyroidism (PHP) is the first example of hormonal resistance observed in human pathology characterized by a great variability of clinical and genetic expression. We present a case of PHP in a Tunisian family.ObservationThe index case is a 31-year-old man. He was burn out of a consanguineous marriage (distant consanguinity) followed since the age of 15 for convulsive seizures. Three m...

Graves’ disease (GD) is caused by autoantibodies to the thyrotropin receptor (TSHR) which mimic the action of TSH. Thyroid stimulating antibodies (TSAB) predominantly signal via the cAMP/PKA cascade whilst blocking antibodies (TBAB) prevent TSH binding. Flow cytometry reveals TSHR antibodies which bind the receptor but do not activate cAMP or inhibit TSH binding. These ‘neutral’ antibodies were identified in people with euthyroid Graves’ orbitopathy (GO, ey...