Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Thyroid imaging is of proven help in establishing a diagnosis of congenital hypothyroidism in newly referred infants. Radio-isotope and/or ultrasound imaging is commonly used; each has weaknesses but have complimentary strengths and thus have been used in combination in our centre since 1999. We undertook a retrospective review and analysis of ultrasound imaging in infants with proven thyroid ectopia to re-examine the diagnoses.Patients and...

Aim: Population studies have shown that basal calcitonin concentrations are below 10 ng/l in the normal population. Ten nanograms per liter is used as a diagnostic cut-off by most laboratories and patients with levels higher than this are offered a pentagastrin stimulation test to exclude medullary thyroid carcinoma. However, these guidelines were adopted from studies that used the Cisbio Immunoradiometric assay for measuring calcitonin. Most laboratories have now moved to che...

Introduction: Education of young children with type 1 diabetes mellitus is challenging. We report a collaboration between a hospital diabetology team and a young, diabetic 3D animator.Materials and methods: This resulted in a novel education tool – a series of five 3D cartoons lasting 5–6 min linked by a diabetic diary. Part 1 describes normal glucose metabolism in a healthy body. Part 2 describes diabetes and DKA. Parts 3–5 deal with: ini...

Background: Although colonic polyps are associated with states of GH excess, no association with gastric polyps has been reported. We describe 2 patients who were treated with rhGH for non-GH deficient growth disorders and who were subsequently found to have gastric polyps.Patient 1: A girl aged 13.6 year with short stature was found to have Turner’s syndrome in the course of being investigated for abdominal pain, diarrhoea and rectal bleeding. Endo...

WF a 52 year old female was referred to the Hammersmith Hospital in August 2001 for further investigation of her persistently elevated fasted gut hormones (GIH) [all previously assayed at the Hammersmith Hospital]. WF was initially diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome 16 years ago. Following an exacerbation of her condition 9 years ago, fasting gut hormones were performed, which showed gross elevation of all peptides measured.The possibility of a neuroendocrine tumour was p...

Introduction: Iodine is essential for thyroid hormones synthesis, and fetal/infant neurodevelopment. There is increasing evidence of iodine insufficiency among British women. The MABY study is a longitudinal cohort study assessing the iodine and thyroid status of pregnant women and their offspring.Methods: Healthy women were recruited (target 697 mother/infant pairs) from antenatal clinics at gestational week (GW) 28±1. Blood and urine were collecte...

Background: Small for gestational age (SGA) and short stature at birth can be defined as birth weight (BW) and birth length (BL) ≤−2 S.D.. Affected neonates can be classified as: i) SGA, ii) Short, iii) SGA + Short. Catch-up growth occurs by age 6 months in 90–95% of Short and SGA + Short infants. A minority remain short after age 2–4 years when the lack of data on BL and parental height (PH) renders assessment difficult.<p class="abste...

Introduction: A multi-disciplinary endocrine Adolescent Transition Clinic (ATC), with key professionals from paediatric and adult services, was instituted at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Glasgow, in October 2008 serving young people in the West of Scotland. A good transition should improve clinic attendance, health outcomes and quality of life into adulthood.Aim: To systematically review the success of ATC in engaging young people following thei...

Background: Temporary hypocalcaemia occurs in up to 40% of patients following a total thyroidectomy. Serum calcium and parathyroid hormone (PTH) measurements are currently used to predict post-thyroidectomy hypocalcaemia. However, immediate access to PTH measurement is expensive and not widely available. Serum phosphate responds rapidly to changes in circulating PTH levels and its measurement is readily available in all hospitals. We evaluated the use of serum phosphate to pre...

The UK Turner Study examined in girls with Turner syndrome (TS) the impact on final height (FH) of Oxandrolone (Ox) and/or delayed pubertal induction (14y).Methods: Girls with TS aged 7–13y receiving GH were randomised to Ox (0.05 mg/kg per day, max. dose 2.5 mg/day) or placebo from 9y (or from enrolment if >9y). Girls requiring oestrogen were further randomised to begin oral Ethinylestradiol (E2) (Y1:2 μg/day; Y2:4 μg/day; ...