Endocrine Abstracts

Ectopic ACTH syndrome (EAS) is characteristically associated with neuroendocrine tumours and small cell carcinomas (SCC) typically of the bronchus. We report a rare case of EAS secondary to gastric adenocarcinoma.A 52-year old man presented to our department with a few week history of proximal myopathy, easy bruising, anxiety and weight loss. He was tanned and hypertensive. Laboratory investigations revealed hypokalaemia (2.3 mmol/l), hyperglycaemia and ...

Objective: To audit the benefits of MIBG and familial screening in patients with a phaeochromocytoma or paraganglionoma.Results: 77 patients (male:female 34:43) have been seen within our hospitals since 1985. Further information has been located on 75. Patients had a median age of 44.3 years (range 19.4–81.2) and a median follow up of 12.0 months postoperatively (range 0–12 yrs). The adenoma was unilateral in 65 cases (86%, left 25, right 40) a...

Case history: A 67-year-old lady was referred to an endocrinologist for autoimmune hypothyroidism diagnosed in 2004. A treatment combination of levothyroxine and liothyronine was used. She had a history of recurrent metastatic ER-positive HER-2 negative lobular breast cancer with liver and bony metastatic involvement. She commenced with Letrozole (aromatase inhibitor) and Palbociclib (CDK inhibitor), later Fulvestrant (antioestrogen) and Crizotinib (tyrosine kinase inhibitor)....

Non-functioning pituitary adenomas (NFA) are associated with significant morbidity. Published data on the quality of life (QoL) of NFA patients are scarce and conflicting: some studies indicate a reduced QoL in patients with adequately treated NFAs while others demonstrate that subjective health-related QoL is not compromised to any major extent compared to the general population. Most published studies indicate specific subgroups of patients which are particularly affected, w...

Somatotroph adenomas causing acromegaly are histologically classified into densely and sparsely granulated subtypes and an intermediate, mixed type. Although the different subtypes are not currently taken into account when making decisions about the management of acromegaly, there is growing evidence that the subtypes represent clinically different entities.In a cohort (n=52) of somatostatin-naïve patients with acromegaly, sparsely granulat...

UK National Acromegaly Register collects data on routine clinical practice in 34 centres. We analysed all GH and IGF1 data to assess adequacy of control & responses to medical treatment (Rx) with somatostatin analogs (SMS) & dopamine agonists (DA). Methods: Under program control, GH records (basal, profile or GTT) were correlated with IGF1, tumour size, Rx, surgery (TSS) & radiotherapy (RT) in the database, then processed in Excel to derive summary data for each pa...

Data on the quality of life (QoL) of patients with non-functioning pituitary adenoma (NFA) are sparse and conflicting. We have therefore evaluated the QoL in patients with NFAs followed-up in a tertiary UK referral centre and explored the impact of various factors. Three validated questionnaires (Short Form 36-SF36, Nottingham Health Profile-NHP and European Quality of Life Scale-EuroQoL) were offered to consecutive NFA subjects attending outpatient clinics over a 6-month peri...

Cushing’s disease (CD) is a rare condition, associated with significant morbidities.The long-term morbidities in a series of patients with CD who presented in two tertiary referral centres between 01/1967-06/2009 were assessed. All information was collected as documented in the records of the patients.224 patients were identified (174 females) with median age at diagnosis 39 years (range 10–76 (females 38 (12–72) &#1...

The ERCUSYN (European Registry on Cushing’s syndrome (CS)) study is a project funded by the European Commission Public Health Program (PHP 800200), of which the ESE is one of the 41 Partners from 25 countries. The aims include obtaining prospective and follow-up data at EU level on epidemiology, mortality, outcome of therapies, co-morbidities, assessment of diagnostic and therapeutic strategies, quality of life evaluation using a disease-generated questionnaire (CushingQo...

Background: Recently, germline mutations in the aryl-hydrocarbon-receptor-interacting-protein (AIP) gene have been found to occur in familial and sometimes in early onset sporadic somatotroph adenomas. These tumours tend to respond less well to somatostatin analogues (SSA). It has been shown previously that AIP can upregulate the transcription factor Zac1 in liver cells, and we were able to also demonstrate this in pituitary cells. On the other hand, Zac1 is upregulated in res...