Endocrine Abstracts

G R Williams, Imperial College London, London, UK. AbstractGraham R Williams obtained a BSc in Anatomy and MBBS from St Thomas’s Hospital, London and undertook PhD studies in Molecular Endocrinology at Birmingham University. He trained as a Howard Hughes and MRC Fellow at Harvard Medical School, USA and was an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellow in Birmingham. He was appointed Senior Lecturer at the Royal Postgraduate...

Diabetes is the major health care problem in developing countries like India. According to WHO survey total number of diabetics patients in India alone is 3.2 cores with fastest growing population of diabetics. This is not a single disease, rather a group of disorders associated with rearrangement in carbohydrate, protein and fat metabolism.Diabetes is characterized by the elevation of blood glucose level resulting from defects in insulin secretion or ac...

Desmond G Johnston, Campus Dean, St Mary’s Hospital Campus, Imperial College London, London, UK Director, UK Diabetes Research Network AbstractProfessor Johnston trained in Edinburgh and Southampton where, as an MRC Training Fellow, he did his PhD with Professor George Alberti. His work at that time investigated metabolic disturbances in liver disease and metabolic aspects of endocrinology.I...

Osteoporosis is characterised by bone fragility with increased susceptibility to fracture. The burden of osteoporosis already costs the NHS over £1.7 billion per annum but its prevalence is increasing. The skeleton is continually remodelled in response to endocrine, paracrine and mechanical signals by the coupled activities of osteoclasts and osteoblasts. Nevertheless, the continuous process of bone turnover results in an inexorable loss of bone because osteoblast-mediate...

Ron G Rosenfeld, Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA., USA. AbstractRon G Rosenfeld, MD, is the Senior Vice-President for Medical Affairs at the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health at Stanford University. He is Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University, as well as Professor and Chair (emeritus) of Pediatrics and of Cell and Developmental Biology at Oregon...

Patients with thyroid cancer usually present with a lump in the neck. However, the vast majority of patients with lumps in the neck do not have thyroid cancer. The practical investigation and management of patients with lumps in the neck will be discussed, with reference to national and international guidelines. Diagnostic dilemmas and controversies will be highlighted.The types of thyroid cancer will be reviewed, with reference to their clinical behavio...

The purpose of this study was to describe MRI signs of Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT) in patients from the iodine deficient region.30 euthyroid patients with HT from the iodine deficient region and 5 healthy individuals were examined by MRI in FSE T1 and T2 pulse sequences. The diagnosis was confirmed according to the standard criteria.The atrophic form of HT (2 cases) showed the reduction of thyroid volume with denominated lobu...

We report the cases of two identical twins with Graves’ disease which proved very difficult to control and followed very similar stormy course. Twin A was a 20 years old female of 12 weeks gestation when she was referred to endocrine clinic with history of weight loss, palpitations and tremor. Her thyroid function tests revealed TSH <0.08 mU/L (0.03–4.30), FT4 82.5 pmol/L (12–22 pmol/L) and FT3 44.4 pmol/L (2.8–7.1) with positive thyroid receptor ant...

We report the case of a 27 year old female who was referred to our diabetes team from the antenatal clinic, when she was found to have an abnormal glucose tolerance at 16 weeks of gestation (fasting and 2 hours blood glucose values of 5.1 mmol/L and 12.2 mmol/L respectively). At the same time she was suffering with severe hyperemesis gravidarum for many weeks and had suffered significant weight loss (thyroid function tests were unremarkable). She had no specific symptoms to su...

We report the case of a 22-year old woman with aggressive Graves disease. She was initially found to be clinically and biochemically thyrotoxic in June-2001 when she presented with severe thyroid eye disease. Treatment was commenced with carbimazole but she failed to adequately comply with therapy and follow-up appointments. She fell pregnant whilst thyrotoxic and was converted to propylthiouracil (dose gradually increased due to poor response). She then left the area and had ...