Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Despite public health interventions, paediatric obesity in the UK is increasing, with almost one third overweight or obese. The direct cost of obesity to the NHS is estimated at 4.2 billion a year. The North-East has some of the highest rates of obesity in the country. A recent clinical practice guideline (March 2017) from European and US Endocrine societies aims to inform assessment, treatment and prevention of paediatric obesity.Aim: To e...

Background: Studies suggest that diabetes mellitus (DM) is associated with greater risk of developing severe forms of COVID-19 and mortality.Aims: To compare clinical characteristics and outcomes in hospitalized COVID-19 patients with and without DM.Methods: A single-center, retrospective, observational study included adult patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 treated at VUHSK between 2020-01-01 and 2021-03-31. Patients were...

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a spectrum of disease ranging from simple intrahepatic lipid accumulation to fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). 5β-reductase (AKR1D1) is a liver enzyme that catalyses a fundamental step in bile acid (BA) synthesis. Both BAs and BA intermediates are established as potent regulators of metabolic and proliferative phenotype. We have hypothesised that AKR1D1 plays a crucial role in NAFLD and HCC. Human liver b...

Background: thyroid function (TSH levels) and thyroid autoimmunity are involved in the immunomodulation of early pregnancy stages and can affect assisted reproductive technology (ART).Aims: 1) to evaluate if pre-conceptional TSH is associated with an increased risk of miscarriage, 2) to identify a TSH cut-off significantly associated with risk of miscarriage, 3) to assess the impact of TSH levels on primary and surrogate outcomes.M...

Objective: After Cushing Syndrome (CS) is cured, up to 70% of patients develop chronic adrenal insufficiency (AI) and hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dysfunction. A long-term treatment with glucocorticoids (GC) is mandatory to overcome AI. However, this treatment implies non-desired complications. Fibroblast growth factor (FGF21), a key regulator of metabolism, has a bidirectional relationship with GC that bypasses the negative feedback of the HPA axis. In this study...

The 5-reductases are steroid metabolising enzymes that saturate the C4=C5 bond of the steroid A-ring, and their substrates include androgens, glucocorticoids, and bile acids. 5β-reductases (SRD5A1 & SRD5A2) convert testosterone to the more potent androgen 5β-dihydrotestosterone, and carry out the first step in glucocorticoid clearance, generating 5β-dihydrocortisol from cortisol. 5β-reductase (AKR1D1) is also able to carry out the first step of glucocor...

Introduction: Female sexual dysfunctions (FSD) are complex conditions characterized by impairment of the female sexual cycle. Higher prevalence of FSD has been found in women with diabetes, as compared with matched healthy controls. Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) are circulating mononuclear cells participating in the neo-angiogenesis. There is evidence that circulating levels of EPCs are reduced in diabetic patients compared with age-matched subjects. The relationship bet...

Background: Pregnancy does not cause differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) recurrence in patients without structural or biochemical evidence of disease at the time of conception. However, data regarding pregnancy’s impact in patients with persistent DTC before conception are still controversial.Aim: The aim of the study was to determine whether pregnancy could significantly influence the outcome in DTC patients in persistence before pregnancy, but wit...

Background: Vandetanib and Cabozantinib are the only two multitarget tyrosine kinase inhibitors approved for the management of metastatic and progressive medullary thyroid cancer. (MTC) Despite their efficacy in terms of progression free survival prolongation and overall response rate, the drug-related toxicity is still a clinical problem, impairing patient’s quality of life and the compliance to the treatment. We retrospectively evaluate the adverse events (AEs) occurred...

Introduction: Only one case of hypophysitis secondary to Takayasu’s artheritis (TKA) has been described so far. We report the second case of a TKA presenting with a massive sellar and cerebrovascular infiltration.Clinical case: A 52 years-old female was referred to endocrine outpatient clinics after a brain MRI performed for a 2-year history of headaches, dizziness and general discomfort. Past medical history included hypertension and aspecific symp...