Endocrine Abstracts

A 39-year-old rugby league player was admitted with back pain to an Endocrinology/General Medicine ward. He was diagnosed with osteomyelitis of the spine and was treated with antibiotic. During his prolonged in-patient stay (6 weeks i.v. antibiotic treatment), the presence of purple striae on his lower abdomen was noted. Although he did not have other classical features of a Cushing’s syndrome including proximal myopathy, he had an increased BMI (38 kg/m2) and ...

A 63-year-old phenotypic male presented with absent testis and enlarged adrenal glands. He had attended the urology clinic for persistent microscopic haematuria. He was found to have an empty scrotum and hypospadias. The patient recalled having genital surgery in childhood but could not recall any endocrine assessment. He was taller than his peers in early childhood but stopped growing after age 13 years. He described himself as ‘potent’. He was unmarried and did not...

Over the last 10 years there have been significant advances in stem cell transplantation (SCT) in adults for haematological malignancies leading to improved survival. Conditioning regimes prior to transplantation often utilise high dose chemotherapy and/or total body irradiation (TBI). Significant endocrinopathies have been reported amongst children undergoing SCT. We report the effect of SCT during adult life on endocrine function.Basal hormone levels w...

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a common chronic systemic inflammatory disease. Several new therapies exist for RA but long-term patient management remains problematic.We have discovered that hypoxia, a characteristic of inflamed tissues, potently inhibits glucocorticoid (Gc) sensitivity. This effect is mediated, in part by HIF1α, whose activity is induced in hypoxia. HIF1α gene expression is also induced in primary peripheral blood mononuclear ce...

Inhibition of 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 1 (11β-HSD1) as a means of reducing tissue corticosteroids is showing marked potential as a treatment for type 2 diabetes. However, reduction in tissue corticosteroids may lead to upregulation of the HPA axis. Therefore this study investigates the effect of 11β-HSD1 inhibition on HPA axis biomarkers and examines whether time of dosing impacts on the biomarkers.C57Bl6/Jax mice were fed 60% kcal...

Anti-inflammatory salicylates improve insulin sensitivity, however the mechanism remains unclear. We have observed down-regulation of the glucocorticoid regenerating enzyme 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 1 (11βHSD1) by salicylates in cultured adipocytes and in human adipose tissue after oral salsalate therapy, consistent with known transcriptional regulation of 11βHSD1 by pro-inflammatory cytokines. Since inhibition of 11βHSD1 improves insulin sensitivity...

Background: Arguably patients undergoing total thyroidectomy for papillary thyroid cancers (PTC) are more likely to have negative radioactive iodine uptake and low/undetectable thyroglobulin levels if the central compartment lymph node dissection (CCLND) is performed routinely irrespective of the macroscopic appearance of the LN. The aim of this study was to determine whether routine CCLND leads to more favourable outcome in the first year after treatment for well-differentiat...

MicroRNAs are highly conserved non-coding RNAs that regulate diverse cellular processes. Altered microRNA expression is observed in many human cancers and microRNAs may have tumour suppressor or oncogenic properties. One group of putative tumour suppressor microRNAs is the let-7 family whose expression is reduced in several human tumours, and which inhibit the expression of several oncogenes including HMGA2 and K-Ras. Let-7 expression have also been observed to b...

Background: Infants born small for gestational age (SGA) usually show catch up growth within the first few years of life. However in the UK ~1500 SGA children each year remain small, with no clear endocrine cause with rare genetic syndromes accounting for only a minority of cases. In order to define growth factor activation in these children we have initiated an assessment of cell growth and signalling in response to GH and IGF1 in fibroblast cell lines....

Introduction: Craniopharyngiomas are usually benign intracranial tumours which can sometimes be locally aggressive. Malignant transformation is extremely rare and has a poor prognosis. We report a case of a patient who developed carcinomatous changes in a craniopharyngioma which was first excised almost 55 years ago.Case report: Mr AM was diagnosed with a craniopharyngioma at the age of 5 years. He underwent surgery in 1952 but was lost to follow up and ...