Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Bilateral adrenal haemorrhage is a rare potentially life-threatening event that occurs either in traumatic or non traumatic conditions. We present a rare case report of bilateral adrenal haemorrhage due to anti-phospholipid antibody syndrome.Case report: A 54 year old Iranian origin male presented with abdominal pain and collapse. His past history includes unprovoked DVT 6 months ago and off the warfarin recently. CT abdomen showed bilatera...

Introduction: The measurement of free thyroxine (FT4) and free 3,3′,5-triiodothyronine (FT3) in serum by equilibrium dialysis immunoassay methods may suffer from a lack of specificity, therefore measurement by LC/MS/MS has the potential to increase the accuracy of the results. Here we present a sensitive method, employing a simple ultrafiltration sample preparation.Description of methods: 400 uL of serum were processed for 90 minutes using a 3kDa c...

Hypercalcemia in hyperthyroidism is usually asymptomatic, and related to a concurrent primary hyperparathyroidism. In this report, we describe a case of symptomatic hypercalcemia secondary to Graves’ disease alone.Case report: A 24-year-old Filipino female presented to the emergency department with generalized weakness, vomiting and abdominal pain. No other symptoms were noted. She was otherwise previously healthy. Family history was unremarkable. ...

Background: A reliable form of androgen substitution therapy in terms of favorable kinetics and tolerance as well as effective restoration of androgenicity is paramount for hypogonadal men. The i.m. injection of the long-acting ester testosterone undecanoate (TU) offers a convenient modality for testosterone substitution.Methods: We report data from 334 patients (147 with primary (including 38 Klinefelter patients), 100 with secondary hypogonadism and 87...

Introduction: Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) can only be cured by parathyroidectomy (PTX) but mild and asymptomatic cases can often be managed conservatively. We carried out a retrospective audit of patients attending the Endocrine clinic at Watford to determine how our practice compared with the different guidelines for surgical referral published in the USA and the UK.Method: A search was carried out of clinic letters from Jan 2010 to Oct 2011. Add...

IVF and ICSI are fully established methods of assisted reproduction which can be used for patients awaiting cytotoxic therapy:Following the data of the German, Swiss and Austrian network Fertiprotekt (www.fertiprotekt.eu), 164 of 1388 counselled patients have chosen ovarian stimulation and cryopreservation of oocytes as a fertility preservation technique in 2007–2009. Among those patients 2417 oocytes were co...

The neuroprotective and promyelinating actions of progesterone, now well documented by experimental studies, make it a particularly promising therapeutic agent for neuroinjury. This concept has recently been translated into clinical practice. Progesterone can also be locally produced in the nervous system by neurons and glial cells. Importantly, increased progesterone synthesis after brain injury may be part of endogenous neuroprotective responses. However, the mechanisms by w...

We present a 65-year-old lady initially diagnosed and treated for epilepsy who was subsequently referred 10 years later for the investigation of underlying spontaneous hypoglycaemia. Laboratory plasma glucose concentrations of 2.0 and 1.7 mmol/l were recorded prior to referral and subsequently a fasting challenge provoked hypoglycaemia associated with a plasma glucose of 0.8 mmol/l, C-peptide 371 pmol/l (NR 120–600) and insulin 7.4 mU/l (NR 0–10). CT and MRI imaging ...

A 45-year-old lady presented with two years history of galactorrhea and tiredness. The galactorrhea had been getting progressively worse. Initially it was on squeezing the breast but later on it came on spontaneously. She had to change her bra more than twice a day. She was also feeling unduly tired. She got occasional headaches but no visual disturbances. The period was regular and she was on no regular medications. She is married and has three children, the youngest is four ...

Bisphosphonates are the mainstay of treatment for metabolic bone diseases such as post-menopausal osteoporosis and Paget’s disease. Enormous progress has been made over the last few years in understanding how these drugs act at the molecular level. After targeting bone and selective internalisation by osteoclasts, simple bisphosphonates are incorporated into cytotoxic, non-hydrolysable analogues of ATP. By contrast, the more potent nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates inhi...