Endocrine Abstracts

Excessive ovarian androgen production developing in post-menopausal women can be associated with severe hirsutism and virilisation. In the absence of an identifiable androgen-secreting tumour, medical therapy rather than surgical removal is a potential treatment option. Despite this, the role and outcomes of medical therapy are not well characterised in this context. We present the long-term outcomes of 2 women with postmenopausal ovarian hyperandrogenism, both of whom were tr...

Background: SPT are late effects of childhood PFBT. Low dose radiation scatter at the edge of craniospinal field has traditionally been blamed for meningiomas and thyroid tumours but the effect of chemotherapy, genetic predisposition and GH replacement on their prevalence is less clear.Methods and aims: As part of a descriptive study of long term (>10 years) functional, endocrine and cognitive outcomes in 36 (20 males) adults aged 21.2 (16–32) y...

The prevalence of primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) is increasing and the majority (over 85%) are now asymptomatic and remain untreated. In order to know whether or not they can be left safely without surgery, issues on disease progression need to be addressed. We aimed to update the natural history of PHPT, with a focus of serum calcium progression in mild untreated patients, selected from a large pre-defined cohort of PHPT in Tayside, Scotland. Possible predictors of progre...

Introduction: NICE recommends that pregnant women with pre-existing diabetes should be offered retinal assessment in the 1st and 3rd trimester by digital retinal imaging. Where retinopathy is already present, an additional assessment should be made in the 2nd trimester.Objectives: To assess the feasibility of retinal screening in pregnancy by a community based mobile retinal screening programme (MRSP).Methods: A retrospective audit...

Carbimazole is a commonly used antithyroid drug with a rare but potentially life-threatening side effect of agranulocytosis. We present a case of a 47-year-old lady who was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism four years previously and treated with carbimazole despite persistent neutropenia.At diagnosis the patient had clinical features of hyperthyroidism and thyroid function test (TFT) showed free T4 40.8 pmol/l (10.6–21.0), free T3...

Introduction: Weight gain following treatment of hyperthyroidism is well recognised. This may lead to compliance problems both in patients with/without eating disorders and subsequent failure of therapy. We describe two cases where this was successfully managed with supervised in-patient therapy.Case 1: A 30-year-old overweight lady was diagnosed with Grave’s disease following childbirth. Thyroid function test (TFT) at initiation of treatment showed...

Background: Visceral fat is a key factor underlying type 2 diabetes. The amount and distribution of body fat is strongly influenced by sex steroids. Androgen receptors (ARs) are present in adipose tissue and are abundant in the detrimental visceral bed. Here, we sought to determine the contribution of the AR in adipose tissue to the pathophysiology of visceral obesity and type 2 diabetes.Methods: Male fat-specific AR-knockout (fARKO) mice (12 weeks; n...

Glucocorticoid excess is characterized by increased adiposity, skeletal myopathy and insulin resistance. Although there is a strong inverse correlation between intramuscular triglyceride (IMTG) levels and insulin sensitivity, the impact of glucocorticoids upon the processes that regulate skeletal muscle lipid metabolism has not been explored.Mouse C2C12 skeletal myocytes were grown to confluence and differentiated into myotubes in chemically defined medi...

Aim: In normal men testosterone levels fall with age. We wished to assess the efficacy and safety of Nebido in men over the age of 60 years in order to assess dose frequency and other potential complications.Subjects and methods: Ten men over 60 years of age (range 60–77 median 64) with primary or secondary hypogonadism were treated with Nebido 1000 mg i.m. Each was given a loading dose of two injections 6 weeks apart (our normal protocol for all pa...

MC3-R expressed in the brain are well characterized however the role of MC3-R in the periphery is unclear. Recently, we described immunopositive staining for MC3-R in the testes of wild-type mice and reported that the testicular histology of the MC3-R null mouse was abnormal. The aims of this further work were to confirm that MC3-R is expressed in testes and determine if ACTH1–39 affects testicular steroidogenesis in vitro.RNA and ...