Endocrine Abstracts

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What do we mean by ‘osteoporosis’? Essentially, bone of reduced mass that is abnormal at a micro-architectural level, with an increased propensity to fracture. The detection of such abnormality is not straight-forward. Any bone will fracture given sufficient force, and it might be thought that restricting further investigation to those who fracture following mild or trivial trauma would be the way forward. Defining what level of trauma should be regarded as ‘mil...

The diagnosis of osteoporosis in the context of the growing skeleton requires both the presence of low bone mass for body size and a history of low trauma fractures. The presentation of osteoporosis may predate adolescence, or less commonly arise during that period. Primary osteoporosis is typically due to osteogenesis imperfecta or idiopathic juvenile osteoporosis. Secondary osteoporosis arises as a result of a variety of conditions, most of which fall under thematic headings...

Proliferative diabetic retinopathy is a major complication of diabetes that is characterised by the growth of new blood vessels from the pre-existing retinal circulation into the vitreous humour, i.e. it is a process of angiogenesis. The initial insult is capillary loss in the mid-peripheral and peripheral retina. The resultant retinal hypoxia stimulates the production of pro-angiogenic growth factors, with vascular endothelial growth factor and the growth hormone/insulin-like...

Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) is a disorder that affects bone material properties, mass and architecture, with resultant bone fragility. Most (85–90%) affected individuals have a mutation in one of the two genes encoding type I collagen (COL1A1/2), although mutations in 16 other genes have been identified that result in congenital bone fragility. Mother A presented in her sixth pregnancy, after having four previous first trimester miscarriages and one well infant. Early an...

Tissue engineering is a new discipline that capitalizes on the expertise of cell biologists and material scientists. It attempts to create three-dimensional complexes of cells and scaffolds for the purposes of repair, regeneration or replacement of diseased tissue. The tissues and organs are constructed using appropriate cells, genes or other biological building blocks along with bioengineered materials and technologies There is no clear evidence yet as to the most appropriate...

Case History: A 46 year old lady presented with deranged thyroid function (TSH 0.05, T4 19.7). She reported palpitations, mild eye irritation, sweats and weight loss. Examination revealed a resting tremor and regular pulse (72 bpm). A small goitre with bruit was present, but no evidence of thyroid eye disease. Block-and-replace regime of carbimazole and levothyroxine was commenced for Graves’ disease. Thyroid peroxidase antibodies were <1. After one year of euthyroidi...

Background: Hyponatraemia is a frequent finding in medical inpatients, where a comprehensive evaluation is warranted to establish the underlying mechanism and guide further management. Whilst the role of confounding medications, syndrome of inappropriate anti-diuretic hormone (SIADH), adrenal insufficiency and polydipsia is well-established as causative factors in the development of hyponatremia, the link between hypothyroidism and hyponatremia is controversial in the medical ...

Introduction: We have recently presented data demonstrating total body and regional bone mass relative to body size is reduced in obese children. Adipokines have been shown to play a role in bone metabolism. We hypothesised that 1) increased bone turnover would be associated with reduced bone mass 2) increased serum leptin would be associated with increased osteoclastogenic factors 3) reduced adiponectin woul...

We have previously shown that obese children with prior fracture have a lower bone mass for body size. We further hypothesised that obese children would fail to gain bone mass in relation to body size over a one-year period compared to lean controls.Methodology: Out of 103 children recruited into obese (BMI>98th percentile) and control (BMI<98th percentile) groups at baseline, 66 children aged 6.5–18 years returned at one year. Total body an...