Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Osteoporosis is a disease characterized by the loss of bone density and deficits in bone microarchitecture. “Diabetoporosity” is a new term for osteoporosis in diabetes mellitus type 2 (T2DM) patients, where classical tools for the assessment of bone properties like dual x-ray absorptiometry or bone turnover markers are lacking prognostic accuracy for the determination of bone quality and fracture risk.MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are get...

Metabolic disorders and cardiovascular events are increased in hypogonadism. Serum HDL composition is a better cardiovascular predictor than the HDL counts. However, there is no information about the HDL subfractions in patients with hypogonadism. We designed a prospective study to investigate the HDL subfractions in treatment naïve subjects with hypogonadism and the effects of two different testosterone replacement regimens on the HDL subfractions. Seventy young male pat...

Introduction: Sertoli–Leydig cell tumours are rare tumours which account for <1% of all solid ovarian tumors. It mostly occurs in 2–4° decades of life. Rapidly progessing symptoms/signs of androgen excess suggest the presence of and androgen secreting tumor.Case: Two postmenopausal patients (50 and 57 year-old) were referred to our Endocrinology Clinic for evaluation of worsening hirsutism. Both of patients had manifestations of hypera...

Introduction: A common genetic polymorphism in the GH receptor (GHR) is deletion of the entire exon 3 sequence (GHRd3 isoform). The GHRd3 isoform seems to be more sensitive with increased downstream GH signalling in activated exon 3 deleted receptor dimers (GHRd3/d3) compared to full length receptor dimers (GHRfl/fl). Presence of the GHRd3 isoform might be associated to pre- and postnatal growth and pubertal development in boys, although controversy exists. The aim was to inve...

A 37-year-old gentleman was admitted following a GP referral for asymptomatic hypercalcaemia. His adjusted calcium was raised at 3.27 mmol/l while phosphate level was normal. The only past medical history was borderline hypertension which was being monitored in primary care. His PTH level was suppressed at 0.43 pmol/l l (1.1–5.5) while 25(OH) Vitamin D was normal at 71.6 nmol/l (48–145). Twenty-four hours urinary metadrenalines were normal. His full blood counts were...

Introduction: The use of haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) as a curative therapy for life threatening immunodeficiency signalled a paradigm shift in clinical outcomes. However, a subset of patients may experience Thyroid Immune Reconstitution Inflammatory Syndrome (IRIS) following immune reconstitution. This is recognised in the adult population but has received little attention in the paediatric literature. We present, what we believe to be, the first case serie...

Over the last 50 years, different studies have been carried out in the field of male hormonal contraception. Two multicenter efficacy studies supported by WHO in which the prototype testosterone-alone regimen was used, have demonstrated the validity of the principle of male hormonal contraception. Contraceptive protection is dependent on the degree of sperm suppression. Azoospermia is certainly the gold standard for this type of contraceptive since no pregnancies were reported...

There are a limited number of studies investigating the immunological alterations accompanying the Sheehan Syndrome. The aim of this study was to evaluate lymphocyte subsets in these patients.Flow cytofluorometry was used for the immunophenotyping of peripheral blood leukocytes from 15 patients (mean age 61.6±11.3, range 34–75 years) and 25 healthy controls (mean age 56.7±10.6, range 34–80 years). The percentages of CD3+, C...

Background: Endocrine disruption in the human fetal testis by environmental agents has been proposed as a possible cause of testicular dysgenesis syndrome (TDS) comprising male reproductive disorders such as testicular germ cell tumours (TGCT), cryptorchidism, hypospadias and low sperm counts. Exposure of fetal rats to the widely used plasticizer di(n-butyl) phthalate (DBP) results in a TDS-like syndrome due to a reduction in testosterone production. Whether such effects also ...

Case history: We report 7 weeks old with central diabetes insipidus, holoprosencephaly (HPE), immunodeficiency and severe colitis. She was first admitted with severe diarrhoea and hypernatremia. A diagnosis of central diabetes insipidus (CDI) was made and she was commenced on subcutaneous desmopressin (DDAVP). Her initial hypothalamic–pituitary axis (HPA) was normal (ACTH 10 ng/l, cortisol 635 nmol/l, GH 23 μg/l and TSH 3.30 μ/l). However repeated cortisols and ...