Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Prolactinomas account for approximately 40% of all pituitary adenomas, with an estimated prevalence of 100 prolactinomas per million adults. Dopamine agonists currently represent the mainstay of treatment. Nevertheless, increasing dopamine-agonist dosage, surgery, and radiotherapy may be necessary in some cases, such as aggressive, dopamine-agonist resistant or atypical prolactinomas.Case: We report the case of a 55 year old man who was inc...

In type 1 diabetes mellitus the insulin-secreting β-cells in pancreatic islets of Langerhans are selectively destroyed by autoimmune assault. Since diabetes is caused by the loss of a single cell type it is amenable to treatment by cell replacement therapy. Advances in islet transplantation procedures have demonstrated that people with type 1 diabetes can be cured by human islet transplantation, but the severely limited availability of donor islets has restricted the wide...

Peter J Fuller, Prince Henry’s Institute, Clayton, Victoria, Australia. AbstractProfessor Fuller is an NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow at Prince Henry's Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne where is the Associate Director and Head of the Steroid Receptor Biology Group. He is also Director of the Endocrinology Unit at the Monash Medical Centre/Southern Health and an Adjunct Professor in Medicine and ...

Case: A 41-year-man presented to his GP with a pruritic skin rash affecting the whole body but sparing the face. He was treated with antihistamines with no improvement. On investigation thyroid function tests showed free T4 48 pmol/l, free T3 11.6 pmol/l with suppressed TSH<0.1 mU/l. He was started on carbimazole and referred to endocrinology. At the clinic it was noted that he has lost weight, felt hot all the time. There was no past history of rash....

Introduction: Familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) is a severe form of hyperlipidaemia resulting in early coronary heart disease (CHD). It has autosomal dominant inheritance with a prevalence of 1 in 500.Aim: Given this prevalence we would expect 1000 cases in our local catchment area of East and North Hertfordshire. Far fewer cases are know about. We tried to find out where potential cases were and assess the management of all cases.<p class="abstext...

Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) are multifunctional proteins that regulate the fate of different cell types, including mesenchymal. BMPs promote the differentiation of mesenchymal cells into functional osteoblasts. Like other members of the transforming growth factor-β superfamily, BMPs elicit their cellular effects via specific types I and II serine/threonine receptors. The activated BMP type I receptor phosphorylates specific receptor-regulated (R)-Smad proteins, whi...

The hGH gene is expressed in epithelial cells of the normal human mammary gland. Increased epithelial expression of the hGH gene is associated with the acquisition of pathological proliferation, and the highest level of hGH gene expression is observed in metastatic mammary carcinoma cells. Autocrine hGH production in human mammary carcinoma cells results in increased cell proliferation and survival associated with alterations in morphology. We have further demonstrated that au...

Introduction: Hyponatraemia is commonly encountered in clinical practice in the context of multiple pathology and marked morbidity. A study was conducted to examine the quality of clinical assessment, care offered and frequency of specialist opinion sought in hospital in-patients with severe hyponatraemia (<120 mmol/l).Audit standards included assessment of fluid status, measurement of ‘baseline investigations’ (urinary sodium and paired os...

The adrenal gland is composed of the medulla and the cortex, which is further subdivided into three zones: zona glomerulosa (zG), zona fasciculata (zF) and zona reticularis (zR). The zones of the cortex are functionally characterised by their ability to synthesise different steroids and consequently they express different steroidogenic enzymes. These and other markers of the zones have been described but so far no good candidate for a determining factor of zonal establishment ...

A 30-year-old woman, presented 3 weeks postpartum, with episodes of sweating, dizziness and confusion, which occurred a few hours after eating and also on waking. At consultation she became vacant and lost consciousness. Her capillary blood glucose was found to be 1.2 mmol/l and she promptly responded to intravenous glucose administration. There was a history of several similar, but less severe episodes which required frequent feeding to avoid them. Her liver function and pitu...