Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Autoimmune thyroid disease affects 1% of the population and comprises several disorders, including Graves’ disease(GD). Local and serum cytokines are increased in patients with Graves disease, play a central role in co-ordinating immune reactions and have immunolgical and functional effects on thyroid cells.Aim: To investigate serum inflammatory and cytokines profile in untreated patients with Graves’ disease at diagnosis, when th...

Myostatin is expressed predominantly in skeletal muscle and at significantly lower levels in adipose tissue. The loss of myostatin by gene disruption prevents an age-related increase in adipose tissue mass and partially attenuates the obese and diabetic phenotypes. Inhibition of myostatin signaling could be useful to prevent and/or treat obesity and diabetes. Male OLETF and LETO rats as non-diabetic controls were treated with or without ALA (100 mg/kg per day) and/or insulin (...

A large body of evidence suggests that in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) there is a link between abdominal adiposity, visceral adiposity dysfunction and hyperandrogenism and this relationship could be bidirectional. However a well designed study of adipose tissue distribution reported no significant differences between PCOS and controls. Visceral adiposity index (VAI) is a recently reported marker of the cardiovascular risk, strongly correlated with visceral adipose tissue (...

Background: Persistent Müllerian Duct syndrome (PMDS) is characterised by the presence of Müllerian structures in a 46XY male. PMDS can result from either a defect in Anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) production or in the AMH receptor. AMH causes the Müllerian ducts to atrophy, enabling the testes to move transabdominally to the deep inguinal rings and into the scrotum. In the absence of AMH action, PMDS can cause problems with testicular descent. We present a f...

Introduction: Diseases of the hypothalamus/pituitary are complex and can be difficult to diagnose. Diagnostic possibilities are many and include sphenoid ridge meningiomas and aneurysms of the internal carotid artery as well as craniopharyngiomas, gliomas of the optic nerve, inflammatory and granulomatous disease.Case report: We present two cases to illustrate the complex differential diagnosis.The first patient presented with head...

Background: Sotos syndrome is an uncommon condition characterised by rapid growth, large body size and acromegaloid facies.There is limited data on metabolic abnormalities in Sotos syndrome.Aims: We investigated insulin sensitivity and secretion rates in a 22 year old girl with Sotos syndrome, prompted by the observation of a flat glucose response after an oral glucose challenge.Methods: Glucose tolerance was assessed with a 75g 2-h oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), ...

Advances in the treatment of acromegaly mean biochemical 'cure ' should be possible in the vast majority of patients. The challenge of the future will be designing treatment algorithms to optimise outcomes for individual patients, to ensure not only life expectancy but also QOL is normalised. QOL data is lacking in acromegaly, as is a disease-specific tool for measuring QOL. ACROQOL is a disease-specific QOL questionnaire compromising 22 questions (scored 1-5, high score good)...

A 37-years-old man was referred to rheumatology with a 3 month history of widespread joint pains, worse on rising in the mornings with early morning stiffness lasting about 15 min. Hands were affected first followed by knees and hips. On further questioning, he also complained of generalised fatigue, loss of libido and thinning of the hair on his chest, as well as 15 kg weight loss over 6 months. He recalled a febrile illness with headache prior to the onset of his symptoms, b...

Introduction: Diabetes with a high prevalence in Iran could affect all aspects of the individual life. Iranian people with diabetes living in rural area have access to health care system and family physician through the health care homes which offer health related care and education to the population. The services are provided by family physician and assistant health provider for remote rural area by weekly visiting tour to provide the opportunity to use health care system&#14...

Although GH has been implicated in the pathogenesis of retinopathy in diabetic subjects, the frequency of retinopathy in diabetic acromegalic subjects is deemed to be rare. The aim of our study is to evaluate the prevalence of retinopathy in hypersomatotropic patients.Subjects and methods: In total, 40 acromegalic diabetic patients (21 M, 19 F, mean age=50 years) underwent funduscopy to search for diabetic retinopathyResults: Among...