Endocrine Abstracts

Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) has been a subject of controversy for more than a decade being called ‘a miracle hormone’, the ‘elixir of life’ and ‘an anti-aging supplement’. However, recent literature has proven mild to moderate benefit in selected group of patients. Data is mostly limited to primary adrenal failure patients with adequate glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid replacement and in hypopituitarism from variable aetiology associated wit...

Phaeochromocytoma is a common endocrinological diagnosis with an incidence of 1–2 per 10 000 people. Prompt evaluation and treatment leads to an excellent prognosis. Recurrence has been documented rarely (with literature reporting possibility of up to 8 years delay) and causes are generally attributed to inherited mutations, seeding during surgery or malignancy. Malignancy rates have been variable from 10% depending on site and mutations. In addition, the definition of ma...

Introduction: Distal renal tubular acidosis (RTA) can have varied presentation. Onset in infancy is usually severe. However, adolescent onset has variable presentation ranging from hypokalemia to nephrocalcinosis, and rarely with rickets or growth retardation. We describe a girl with distal RTA presenting with hypokalemia and growth retardation.Case: 12 year old girl presented with recurrent episodes of weakness of all four limbs and failure to gain heig...

Background: Adiponectin is an adipocyte-derived adipokine, down-regulated in obesity linked disorders. Here, we investigated the genotypic variability of adiponectin (at position; +T45G and +G276T) and its association with circulating adiponectin and metabolic syndrome in North Indian adult women.Methods: We compared metabolic syndrome (MetS; 269) women to without metabolic syndrome (wMetS; 272) women of North India. Genotype frequencies of the adiponect...

Introduction: Long-term survivors of childhood-onset brain tumours have increased risk of premature vascular disease by mechanisms that remain unclear. We hypothesised that a thrombotic fibrin network profile is one mechanism for the increased vascular risk in this population.Methods: We undertook a cross-sectional study in 33 patients with previous history of brain tumours and 33 age and sex-matched healthy controls. We performed clot structure analysis...

Case report: A 13-year-old male presented with a 10-day history of vomiting. He was haemodynamically stable. His biochemistry was evaluated revealing a sodium level of 96 mmol/l. He had been seen 2 years previously with short stature. Sodium was normal at this time. He had speech and language delay, learning difficulties and was under investigation for autism. He had reportedly salt craved for years. Potassium, urea, creatinine, and glucose were normal throughout the admission...

Background: Current NICE guidance states that insulin pump therapy (CSII) can be considered in Type 1 diabetes (T1DM) patients who suffer disabling hypoglycaemia in an attempt to reach glycaemic control or whose HbA1C remains high (>69 mmol/l) despite careful management on multiple daily injections (MDI).Aims: Our aims were to determine impact of CSII therapy on glycaemic control, BMI, incidence of severe hypoglycaemia and episodes of diabetic ketoac...

A 6 month boy with chronic vomiting and severe weight faltering (birth weight 50th to 75th centile dropped to 0.4th centile) originally attributed to gastro-oesophageal reflux was admitted after a period of poor urine output and found to have severe hypernatraemia (Na 168 mmol/l, K 4.1 mmol/l, Urea 16.2 mmol/l, Creatinine 54 umol/l) with high plasma osmolality (330 mosm/kg) and inappropriately low urine osmolality (130 mOsm/Kg). Renal USS was normal with slightly small kidneys...

Introduction: Childhood-onset cancer survivors demonstrate increased mortality rates due to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events. Studies suggest that leukaemia and brain tumour survivors have a relative risk of 6.4 and 29.0 respectively for stroke. Adverse lipid profile, body composition, insulin resistance and hypertension have been implicated to the increased cardiovascular risk in these patients, however little is known about procoagulant factors and markers of vascul...

Introduction: The vitamin D hormone system has been implicated in the pathogenesis of several autoimmune diseases, including Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus, as an adaptive immune system modulator.Objectives: The objective of this study is to examine the role of cholecalciferol in modulating the altered immune response in T1DM, thereby improving glycemic control and residual pancreatic Beta-cell function, measured objectively by Haemoglobin A1c levels, GAD65 an...