Endocrine Abstracts

Thyroid dysfunction is common and the clinical presentation of subjects with abnormal thyroid hormone concentrations varies widely. Whilst acute illness may affect the interpretation of thyroid function tests, delaying diagnosis and treatment of thyroid dysfunction may have significant consequences. We set out to determine the likelihood of thyroid function testing and the factors influencing the probability of serum TSH measurement in hospitalised patients with a recorded dia...

Obesity is a global health concern and the proportion of overweight and obese people in the UK is rapidly increasing. Patients undergoing treatment for hyperthyroidism frequently express concerns regarding excessive weight gain, especially when offered treatment with I-131. We investigated 1047 patients with overt hyperthyroidism to determine the extent of weight changes and to identify risk factors for weight gain following treatment. Overall, 727 (69.4%) patients gained &#88...

Background: Thyroid hormones (TH) are vital for fetal and placental development. TH transporters including monocarboxylate transporters 8 and 10 (MCT8, MCT10), organic anion transporters (OATP1A2, OATP4A1) and system-L amino acid transporters (LAT1, LAT2) are expressed in human placenta from 6 weeks of gestation. All of these TH transporters have been localized to the human syncytiotrophoblast layer of placental villi, which is in direct contact with maternal bl...

Hyperthyroidism is known to result in excess all-cause and circulatory mortality. We set out to identify which factors predict mortality in 1290 patients (1019 females and 271 males) with overt hyperthyroidism and determined if treatment with antithyroid drugs or radioactive iodine (131I) affect outcome. All individuals were aged ≥40 years (median: 57.5 years) and presented to our clinic between 1989 and 2003. Cause of death was compared with age- and period s...

A 69-year-old man with no family history of thyroid disease presented with weight gain and constipation. He was clinically euthyroid with no goitre. Investigations confirmed autoimmune hypothyroidism with FT4 16.9 pmol/l (N: 10–22), TSH 29.14 mIU/l (N: 0.4–4.5), elevated thyroid peroxidase (TPO) antibodies 3311 IU/ml (N: 0–34) and he was commenced on thyroxine with serial dose adjustments to 250 mcg OD over 2 years. His TSH however remained ...

We have previously (Allehabadia et al., JCEM, 2001) reported better cure rates for patients treated with a single fixed dose of 370 MBq 131I compared with 185 MBq. We have since increased the standard dose of administered radioiodine to 600 MBq and re-audited our data in 1240 consecutive thyrotoxic patients. We aimed to compare the efficacy of the new dose regimen and to explore factors that might predict outcome. Patients were categorised in 3 diagnostic gro...

Whilst the majority of differentiated thyroid cancers (DTC) have oncogenic mutations, a significant minority may be driven by the overexpression of proto-oncogenes. PTTG and PBF are proto-oncogenes which are induced in DTC, elicit tumours in xenograft models and interact in vitro, where PBF shuttles PTTG into the nucleus. However, the relative contributions of each gene to DTC has not been delineated. Here, we constructed a bi-transgenic murine model over-expressing b...

Evidence-based clinical guidelines in Endocrinology attempt to improve and standardise patient care. There has been an expansion in guideline production although some of the heterogeneous methods used to assess the underlying evidence base may limit interpretation and implementation. Current and archived guidelines from The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE), The Endocrine Society (ES), The American Thyroid Association, The British Thyroid Association and...

The plasma membrane thyroid hormone (TH) transporter, MCT8, is present in the human placenta from early gestation and is postulated to participate in transplacental transfer of TH. In vitro, MCT8 overexpression decreases the survival of human cytotrophoblast in a TH-independent manner.Objective: To examine the role of Mct8 in fetoplacental growth using the Mct8 knockout (ko) mouse model.Methods: Heterozygous females were mat...

Thyroid hormones (THs) are important for fetal and placental development. Monocarboxylate transporters 8 and 10 (MCT8 and MCT10) are effective plasma membrane TH transporters expressed in the human placenta from 6 weeks of gestation. Both have been localized to human villous trophoblasts and extravillous trophoblasts (EVTs).Aims: Using HTR-8/SVneo cells as a model of 1st trimester EVTs, we assessed 1) T3 effects on gene expression, cell prolif...