Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Dopamine agonists have been routinely used in the treatment of prolactinomas since 1971. Increasingly, cabergoline is used as first-line treatment because of its tolerability and improved patient compliance. CSF rhinorrhoea is a rare but recognised adverse effect of rapid tumour shrinkage following dopamine agonist therapy. We report a case of cabergoline induced CSF rhinorrhoea in a young man with macroprolactinoma.Case: A 26-year-old stud...

Background: Hashimoto’s encephalopathy is a rare steroid-responsive condition associated with high antithyroid antibody titres. We report a case of autoimmune thyroiditis presenting with status epileptics.Case: A 36-year-old non-epileptic Caucasian lady presented as an emergency with uncontrolled generalised seizures requiring sedation, short-term ventilation and maintenance sodium valproate therapy. Further enquiry revealed a 3–4 week history ...

Aim: Short Synacthen test (SST) has become increasingly accepted and widely used screening test for the assessment of the integrity of hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), however there are difference of opinion about the duration of the test and most acceptable is 30 minutes plasma cortisol level after giving 250 μg of synacthen. Therefore we have compared 30 minutes SST with 60 minutes SST for assessment of the HPA axis.Method: Response to th...

Background: Adult spontaneous hypoglycaemia in non-diabetic patients is not a diagnosis per se but a manifestation of a disease and is often a diagnostic challenge. Although rare, it’s important to exclude endogenous hyperinsulinemia, because treatment can be curative. The aim of our audit was to assess the usefulness of various investigations done for spontaneous hypoglycaemia in diagnosing Insulinoma.Methods: Data on 98 non-diabetic patie...

Infection with HIV may be complicated by hypoinsulinaemic hypoglycaemia. We report, for the first time, a case of hyperinsulinaemic hypoglycaemia in a pregnant woman with HIV. A 30 year old patient was diagnosed to have AIDS during the 8th week of her fourth pregnancy and was commenced on standard antiretroviral therapy. At 27 weeks of pregnancy she presented with a grand mal seizure and was found to be hypoglycaemic with venous blood glucose of 1.2mmol/L with inappropriately ...

Infection with HIV may be complicated by hypoinsulinaemic hypoglycaemia. We report, for the first time, a case of hyperinsulinaemic hypoglycaemia in a pregnant woman with HIV. A 30 year old patient was diagnosed to have AIDS during the 8th week of her fourth pregnancy and was commenced on standard antiretroviral therapy. At 27 weeks of pregnancy she presented with a grand mal seizure and was found to be hypoglycaemic with venous blood glucose of 1.2mmol/L with inappropriately ...

Behavioural restrictions observed following Radioiodine therapy(RAI) administered for management of hyperthyroidism are becoming more stringent. Over the last two years we have administered a fixed 400 MBq RAI dose after performing a 24-hour RAI uptake test with a view to reducing post RAI restrictions e.g. for patients with a 50% uptake, restrictions applicable to 200 MBq were advised. The aim or our study was to compare the restrictions as advised by this method with what wo...

Neuroendocrine tumours are uncommon and often present difficult therapeutic challenges. They may be composed of different cell types and are often multihormonal. We present the case of a 75 year-old man diagnosed to have a glucagonoma in 1995. He was deemed unfit for curative surgery and was managed medically including insulin therapy for control of hyperglycaemia. Over the next 7 years the patient became progressive more symptomatic due to increase in tumour size and hepatic ...