Endocrine Abstracts

The cataloguing of human genes and determination of common genetic variation in the human genome presents the major challenge of determining how inherited genetic variation affects our health. Epidemiologists are responsible for assessing the proportion of specific diseases associated with particular genotypes, and how these genotypes interact with environmental and lifestyle factors in disease causation. The advent of the capacity to perform Genome-Wide Association Studies ha...

Lipodystrophy syndromes are rare heterogeneous disorders characterized by deficiency of adipose tissue, and, frequently associated, but not always, to severe metabolic abnormalities including diabetes mellitus and dyslipidemia. With the exception of HIV-associated lipodystrophy, the other distinct subtypes of lipodystrophy are very infrequent, so they are considered rare diseases. Lipodystrophy is classified as genetic or acquired and by the distribution of fat loss, which can...

Screening is a process of identifying apparently healthy people at increased risk of a disease or condition. They can then be offered appropriate treatment to reduce the risk arising from the disease or condition.Thyroid autoimmunity (TAI), defined by the presence of antibodies against thyroperoxidase and thyroglobulin, have been associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes, infertility, and impaired child neurodevelopment. However, associations do not nec...

Personalized (precision) medicine has already made its mark and has the potential to enhance patient management. It consists in adapting healthcare strategies tailored to individual and disease characteristics. Nuclear medicine has a central role in personalized medicine via theranostics approaches. PRRT is now a well established treatment option for well-differentiated advanced neuroendocrine tumors (NETs). PRRT is based on the administration of somatostatin analogs (SSA) lab...

Background: It is well recognised that the most frequent cause of mineralocorticoid induced hypertension is primary hyperaldosteronism. Excess 11-deoxycorticosterone (11-DOC), which is a precursor molecule for the production of aldosterone, may in rare cases be the cause of the mineralocorticoid induced hypertension in patients with normal or low aldosterone levels.Case: We describe a 70 year old female patient with a background of treated breast cancer ...

Background: TIRADS scoring is used to assess the thyroid nodules using USG, commonest used is ACR-TIRADS; another is K-TIRADS scoring. Nodule stiffness is assessed by elastography strain Rago scoring & FNA nodule gives lower (benign) or higher Bethesda (possible malignant) category report. The combined use of TIRADS & Rago scorings with Bethesda as final output can assess whether addition of elastography improves the correlation between thyroid nodule TIRADS scoring an...

Adiponectin, an exclusive adipose-derived hormone, circulates at high concentration, and exerts metabolic effects. Adiponectin levels in the circulation correlate negatively with BMI, and low adiponectin concentrations are associated with the low grade inflammation and metabolic dysfunction that accompanies obesity. Adiponectin has been reported to have potent anti-inflammatory activities, and to exert these effects by regulating macrophage function. The mechanism of adiponect...

Background: Daily injection of progesterone in men is reported to suppress the pituitary LH response to GnRH challenge. We hypothesized that the progesterone nuclear hormone receptor antagonist mifepristone (RU486) would reverse these effects.Study design: Open–label randomised, three period crossover-over study in 12 healthy male subjects. Subjects were treated for 8 days with A/ progesterone 50 mg (IM) alone; B/ progesterone 50 mg + mifepristone 1...

Sleep and cortisol cycles have a complex inter-relationship that is not fully understood. Slow wave sleep appears to have an inhibitory effect on cortisol production but the effect of other stages is not so clear. From diseases, such as Addisons disease and Cushings syndrome, we know that cortisol levels have an impact on the quality of sleep. In insomnia and depression, both sleep and cortisol is altered.To investigate this relationship properly a minim...

Background: Maintenance of euthyroidism is particularly important during pregnancy. In the early stages of gestation, maternal thyroid hormone is required for foetal neurological development. Some authors suggest presumptively increasing the thyroxine replacement at diagnosis of pregnancy. Recent United Kingdom guidelines recommended that thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) and free T4 (fT4) should be measured in hypothyroid women before conception, at diagnosis of pregnancy, at...