Endocrine Abstracts

Requirement for daily rhGH injections is a treatment burden that can compromise adherence and efficacy in patients with GHD. Somavaratan is a novel long-acting rhGH fusion protein in clinical development for pediatric and adult GHD. In a multicenter, randomized Phase 1b/2a study, somavaratan significantly improved height velocity (HV) and IGF-I in pre-pubertal children with GHD. Preliminary efficacy and safety in subjects who have completed 3 years of somavaratan treatment are...

Introduction: We report a patient with hypokalaemia secondary to Cushing’s syndrome (CS) to reinforce this commonly forgotten association.Case report: A 57 years old lady with newly diagnosed hypertension, hyperlipidaemia and diabetes mellitus presented with persistent hypokalaemia for evaluation. She had tinea corporis but otherwise did not look Cushingoid. Investigations: K 2.6 (RI: 3.50–5 mmol/l), HCO3 35 (RI: 19–31 mmol/l), ...

Introduction: Primary thyroid lymphoma (PTL) is rare and constitutes 2–5% of thyroid malignancies. The risk however increases with background Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. (HT) We report a patient with HT complicated by thyroid lymphoma and did a literature review on this topic.Case presentation: A 61-years-old Chinese lady with background HT on levothyroxine presented with an enlarging goitre of 6 months duration. There was weight loss of 3–4 ...

Introduction: Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare disease with a poor prognosis and limited therapeutic options. Mitotane is considered as a first-line therapy but only 30% of the patients showing an objective tumour response.Erlotinib and gefitinib (tyrosine kinase inhibitors – TKI) inhibit the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), which is highly expressed and occasionally mutated in various cancers. EGFR expression was found to be a good ...

Background: Low thyroid hormone concentrations in the first few weeks of life in preterm infants may be linked with poor neurodevelopment. We conducted a multi-centred randomised controlled trial of thyroxine (T4) supplementation in babies born under 28-weeks’ gestation (TIPIT study). A post hoc subgroup analysis was undertaken to examine brain growth and development.Methods: Seventy-eight infants received T4 supplementation an...

Background: Insulin resistance and obesity are characteristic features of PCOS. Oxidative stress leads to the formation of lipid peroxidation products in the skeletal muscles and has the potential to interfere with insulin signaling and thereby contribute to insulin resistance. Malondialdehyde (MDA) is a lipid peroxidation end product and is widely used as a marker of oxidative stress.Rimonabant has been shown to reduce weight and insulin resistance in o...

Objectives: Pre-clinical medical education is mainly delivered in didactic large-group lectures, where complex new terminology and concepts are introduced. Mounting evidence suggests that pre-class activities introducing new material can increase student performance. Concise Medical Information Cines (CoMICs) compresses information on various diseases into 5-minute videos. This study assessed the effectiveness of CoMICs as a pre-lecture resource to enhance learning and motivat...

Introduction: The ESPE e-Learning web portal is a free, globally accessible online tool to enhance learning in Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes. Since August 2022, the e-learning content includes 30 accredited hours of ESPE/ISPAD e-learning Continuing Medical Education (CME) courses with ten core modules each in Paediatric Endocrinology, Paediatric Endocrinology in Resource Limited Setting (RLS) and Paediatric Diabetes. The CME modules were created by wor...

The recent discovery of brown adipose tissue (BAT) in adult humans, which generates heat to maintain body temperature in a cold environment, offers an exciting new strategy to treat obesity and metabolic disease, but our knowledge of human BAT activation is limited. To identify novel pathways regulating human BAT, we undertook RNA sequencing of human brown and white adipocytes. The gene SLC6A4 (encoding the serotonin transporter SERT) was one of the most highly differ...

Objective: Pituitary apoplexy (PA) is a rare, sometimes life-threatening clinical syndrome. However, some cases are subclinical (SPA), just revealed by MR performed during the follow-up of known pituitary adenomas or due to other conditions. Our aims were to describe the clinical characteristics and evolution of the patients with SPA compared with patients with acute PA (APA). We also compare the results of surgery vs conservative management in the APA group.<p class="abst...