Endocrine Abstracts

Understanding how fate choices are made by multipotent progenitors during pancreas development is valuable information in the quest for regenerative medicine and cell therapy to treat diabetes mellitus. Pancreatic differentiation is well defined and understood in rodents however, human data are comparably scarce. Specifically, when human pancreatic progenitors are multipotent is unknown as are the epigenetic changes that these cells undergo during their differentiation to beta...

The pituitary tumor transforming gene binding factor (PBF) is a poorly characterised gene that is over-expressed in pituitary and thyroid tumours. Recently, we showed that subcutaneous expression of PBF elicits tumours in nude mice, and expression correlates with thyroid tumour recurrence in man. Given the established role of ionising radiation in thyroid tumourigenesis, we have now investigated the relationship between PBF and the tumour suppressor gene p53, a central compone...

Leptin is an adipocytokine with a role in appetite, energy expenditure and reproductive regulation. In normal, non-obese individuals, leptin levels are higher in females, independent of differences in body fat between the genders. High levels of leptin that were disproportionate to body mass index (BMI) have been reported in craniopharyngioma patients, thus we hypothesised that surgical resection and hypothalamic damage conferred leptin resistance on craniopharyngioma patients...

Adult GH deficiency is associated with poor quality of life (QoL) which has been shown to improve with GH replacement is some but not all, mainly short-term studies. In addition, it remains unclear whether this improvement in QoL is sustainable.We aimed to establish the short and long-term effect of GH replacement on QoL in 167 adult patients with severe GH deficiency in a prospective study. QoL was assessed using the quality of life-assessment of growth...

Primary resistance to Cabergoline occurs in a minority of patients with lactotroph adenomas but the development of late resistance following initial response is an extremely rare phenomenon which has only been reported in very few cases.: We report the case of a 57 year old lady who was presented in 1997 with headaches and visual failure and was found to have a large pituitary mass with compression of the optic chiasm and invasion into the cavernous sinuses bilaterally. Serum ...

ObjectiveActive acromegaly is associated with increased mortality. While surgery is the mainstay of treatment, it is not always curative. In selected cases, CyberKnife stereotactic radiosurgery (CK SRS) can be used as adjuvant treatment in patients with persistent disease.DesignThis is a retrospective review of the biochemical and imaging characteristics for patients with active acromegaly treated with CK SRS...

Aim of the studyA relative can be an asset in dealing with chronic illnesses such as acromegaly where quality of life is altered even after remission. However, it has been shown that quality of life of caregivers can also be impacted. Our main objective was to explore the consequences of acromegaly in remission in the patient-relative dyad in a matter of quality of life and self-esteem.MethodsIn this French m...

We investigated the association between vitamin D metabolites and incidence of lower body (pelvis and lower limb) overuse musculoskeletal and bone stress injury in 1637 men and 530 women (22.6 ± 7.5 years), undergoing 12 weeks initial military training. We measured serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) and 24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (24,25(OH)2D) by high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry, and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH)2D) by...

Zoledronate in the Prevention of Paget’s disease (ZiPP) trial (ClinicalTrials.gov ID:NCT03859895) is a multi-centre, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised trial of Zoledronic acid (ZA) in sequestosome1 (SQSTM1) mutation carriers. SQSTM1 mutation has high penetrance and is associated with the early onset of Paget’s disease of bone. Participants with the SQSTM1 genotype received either a single dose of IV 5mg ZA (Aclasta, Novartis); intervention group n...

Background: Treatment options for patients with toxic multinodular goitre (TMNG) include antithyroid medications, thyroidectomy, and radioactive iodine (RAI) therapy. Our aim was to investigate the efficacy of RAI alone compared to combination therapy that includes RAI with medical therapy.Methods: Search was performed using MEDLINE, MEDLINE In-Process (PubMed platform), Embase (Elsevier platform), BIOSIS and Cochrane wa...