Endocrine Abstracts

Thyroid hormones have been employed for 3 decades as adjunct treatments in depression and the stabilization of manic depression, especially in women. After a brief historical review, two studies will be presented to highlight this 'drug' use of thyroid hormone.(1) A meta analysis of six studies on the use of thyroid hormone to accelerate antidepressant response. Five studies found T3 to be significantly more effective than placebo, especially in women....

The insidious onset of symptoms and slow progression of acromegaly often results in a delay in diagnosis for several years. We report an unusual case who presented with progressive lymphoedema of the lower limbs 25 years before the diagnosis of acromegaly became apparent.A 51 year old lady presented to the surgical outpatient clinic with a twenty four year history of bilateral leg swelling and hypertension of 21 years duration. There was no antecedent h...

Hypothalamic GnRH neuronal dysfunction is a frequent cause of hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism (HH) in women with secondary amenohrroea. However, the entity is poorly characterized in men, possibly due to lack of a sensitive equivalent clinical marker of the condition.A 40-year-old man presented with a 7-year history of progressive lack of energy, loss of libido, decreased sexual function, and loss of morning erections. Puberty had occurred normally and h...

The principal physiological effect of the anterior pituitary hormone prolactin is to stimulate milk production during lactation. However, recombinant mouse prolactin (PRL) has recently been shown to have an antidiuretic effect when the normal antidiuretic hormone, vasopressin, is either absent from the circulation or its secretion inhibited(1). The present study was designed to investigate whether this antidiuretic effect of prolactin was mediated by changes in the glomerular ...

Raised levels of IGF-I have been associated with risk of developing several cancers including breast carcinoma. In addition to promoting mitogenesis in breast cancer cells, a number of observations suggest a role for inhibition of apoptosis by IGF-I receptor activation. Ligand binding to IGF-IR leads to activation of both the phosphoinositide-3'-kinase (PI3K) and the Ras/Raf/MAPKinase pathways. Deprivation of serum growth factors induces apoptosis in MCF-7 breast cancer cells ...

Thyroidal pain is usually due to subacute thyroiditis. It seldom occurs in patients with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT), and then its name is painful HT (PHT). Differently from subacute thyroiditis, occasional PHT patients show no benefit from medical treatment so that thyroidectomy is frequently needed. We report two women diagnosed of PTH and successfully treated with intrathyroidal corticosteroid injection after initial unsuccessful treatment with L-thyroxine replacement...

In human GL cells, 11beta-HSD catalyses the interconversion of cortisol (F) with its inert 11-ketosteroid metabolite, cortisone (E). Since GL cells synthesise prostaglandins (PGs), and PGs have been shown to modulate the expression and activity of the cloned 11beta-HSD enzymes, the objective of the present study was to establish whether locally synthesised PGs affected the net oxidation of F to E by 11beta-HSD in human GL cells recovered from the ovaries of women undergoing co...

IntroductionA high calcium-phosphate product is thought to increase the risk of soft tissue calcification in hypoparathyroidism, including cataracts. Based on small case series, cataracts in hypoparathyroidism typically develop in the posterior subcapsular region of the lens. However, the mechanism of cataract formation is still not well understood.Materials and methodsIn a large cohort of 1014 patients with ...

The FGF signalling pathway regulates cell proliferation, differentiation, migration and cell specification in mutliple developing and adult tissues. It has also been implicated in tumor development and progression with a significant role in the cancer pathobiology of several malignant tumors including melanoma, breast, pancreas, head and neck and non-small lung cell cancer. FGF signalling plays a major role in the postnatal hypothalamic-pituitary (HP) axis, with dysregulation ...

Objectives: Autoimmune diseases are typically studied with a focus on the immune system, and less attention is paid to responses of target tissues exposed to the immune assault. We aimed to evaluate, based on available bulk RNA sequencing data, whether inflammation induces similar molecular signatures in the target tissues of five autoimmune diseases, namely type 1 diabetes (T1D), Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), multiple sclerosis (MS) and systemi...