Endocrine Abstracts

Isolated acquired hypoaldosteronism (HA) is considered to be a cause of hypovolemic hyponatremia (HH) with urinary sodium loss (UNaL) and hyperkalemia/upper-limit serum potassium (SK). However, some authors question the presentation of hyponatremia of these characteristics in the absence of Addison’s disease (AD).We present a series of patients with HA. Methods: Aretrospective study of 70 cases of HH with UNaL (UNa > 25 mmol/l) and SK ≥ 5 mmol/l or in...

Background and aim: Obesity (Ob) is tightly associated with metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes (DT2) andinsulin resistance (IR). Furthermore, obesity has been identified as one of the primary causes of mood disorders (MDs) including depression. Several studies have demonstrated the link between Ob, adiposity, neuroinflammation and MDs. The Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) and its regulator, the non-coding RNA BDNF antisense RNA (BDNFas), play an import...

BRCA2, is a gene with a critical role in DNA repair and homologous recombination in somatic cells. Patients with BRCA2 biallelic mutations develop Fanconi Anemia (FA), a severe life-threatening condition characterized by pancytopenia and multiple malformations and malignancies, while women with monoallelic alteration are at high risk to develop breast or ovarian cancer (up to 60%). Primary Ovarian insufficiency (POI) affects 1% of women under forty and is a publi...

Introduction: Mild hypercalcaemia can present in 10–15% of hyperthyroid patients. In contrast, its incidence in B cell lymphoma is considerably less (7–8%) but its levels are much higher. We report a patient with hypercalcemia secondary to both thyrotoxicosis and lymphoma.Case report: A 55 year-old lady presented with non specific symptoms of appetite loss and lower limb weakness. Comorbidities included hypertension, diabetes mellitus, hyperlip...

Introduction: One of the main challenges in the management of male hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (HH) is in the restoration of fertility. We describe 2 patients with HH and discuss the difficulties involved in their management.Case (1): A 23-year-old Chinese man presented with lack of secondary sexual characteristics. Examination revealed Tanner Stage 2 with descended testes measuring 6 ml bilaterally. Laboratory results: total testosterone (TT) <1 n...

Using functional MRI, we examined how regional brain activity varies with nutritional state when viewing food pictures of different caloric density and appeal.Eighteen non-obese healthy volunteers (BMI 22.2±0.5 kg/m2, age range 19–36 years, 8 male) were studied on 2 separate mornings after an overnight fast (mean±S.E.M. 15.5±0.3 h) or when fed (1.2±0.1 h after breakfast, food intake 45±4% of estimat...

Introduction: Waist circumference is a validated tool to measure obesity-associated cardiovascular risk factor. However it does not differentiate between superficial and visceral abdominal fat. Ultrasonography has many advantages over TC/DEXA in abdominal fat assessment, specially imaging pre-peritoneal, omental and retroperitoneal fat. Our aims were to validate the diagnostic technique and to observe correlations between different abdominal fat layers with clinical and analyt...

Non-functioning pituitary adenomas (NFPA) are the most common pituitary tumours. They usually come to medical attention because of a mass effect and/or hypopituitarism. Tumour shrinkage during therapy with either dopamine agonists (DA) or somatostatin analogues (SSA) has been previously reported in some cases; however, response of NFPA to medical treatment is still poor and unpredictable. Our aim was to explore the molecular mechanisms underlying this lack of efficacy through ...

Background: Acromegaly (ACRO) is associated with greater cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, however, this is not entirely explained by the increase in classic cardiovascular risk factors (CVRF). C-reactive protein, galectin 3, adiponectin, B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP), apolipoprotein E, interleukin-6 and echocardiographic variables such as epicardial fat (EF) and interventricular septum thickness (IST) have been suggested as non-classical CVRF in the general populatio...

Aim: To assess a perioperative glucocorticoid protocol in transsphenoidal surgery (TSS)and the performance of early post-TSS 08:00 cortisol measurement to detect/exclude secondary adrenal insufficiency.Methods: We selected patients undergoing TSS.In patients with no cushing disease, we checked cortisol/Synachten presurgery, measured 3° postoperative 0800 a.m. cortisol(after 24 h without corticoids) and cortisol/Synachten 3-6 months post-surgery. We ...