Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Pituitary metastasis (PM) is a rare condition and associated with a reduced life-span. The most common primary sites are breast and lung, followed by thyroid and renal cell carcinoma. Patients with PM are mostly asymptomatic and incidentally discovered during neuroimaging. Characteristic symptoms are reported in <20% and most commonly include visual involvement, diabetes insipidus, and panhypopituitarism. We here describe a case with malignant melanoma (MM) w...

Case history: Herein, we report the case of a 79-year-old male who presented acutely to A&E with recurrent episodes of symptomatic hypoglycaemia. A random glucose at presentation was low at 1.4 mmol/l and upon correction symptoms resolved. While hospitalized, he continued having episodes of symptomatic hypoglycaemia, requiring treatment with intravenous dextrose and per os steroids. Once stable, he was discharged with advice.Investigations: ...

Aim: The aim of investigation to determine clinical aggressiveness diagnostic markers in patients with non-functional pituitary adenomas (NFPA), and growth hormone deficiency (GHD) in the formation of gravity neuroendocrine disease symptoms.Material and methods: We observed in 87 patients (including man – 44 women – 43) of which have a verified diagnosis of NFPA after surgery – 31 which were subjected transnasal adenomectomy of the pituiat...

Insulin Tolerance Test (ITT) is a procedure commonly done by Endocrine Specialist Nurse in endocrine department. We look at over 120 ITT results done in 2 endocrine centres using Insulin Actrapid 0.15 UNITS/kg and 0.10 UNITS/kg dose plotting the glucose levels at 30, 45 and 60 min. We also look at peak GH and peak cortisol on each of these groups.Aims: We wanted to know how many percentage of patients achieving hypoglycaemia below 0.5 mmol/l, 0.5–1....

The prolactin receptor (PRLR) is a type-I cytokine receptor that plays critical roles in mammary gland development, lactation and glucose metabolism, and PRLR mutations have been associated with breast cancer and familial hyperprolactinaemia. The PRLR signals via Janus kinase-2-signal transducer and activator of transcription-5 (JAK2-STAT5) or phosphoinositide 3-kinase-Akt (PI3K-Akt) pathways to mediate changes in transcription, differentiation and proliferation, and we hypoth...

Introduction: Metformin is used as a first line treatment in type 2 diabetes. Several studies suggest that patients with type 2 diabetes treated with metformin may have reduced cancer risk. Recently it has been shown that Metformin acts directly on mitochondria to alter cellular bioenergetics and reduce tumorigenesis. We have shown that anti-proliferative effect of Mitotane is related with changes of expression of the genes involved in mitochondrial metabolism in human adrenoc...

Introduction: In our previous studies we found that the combination of 13-cis retinoic acid (13cRA) and lovastatin significantly reduced tumour growth in a mouse phaeochromocytoma allograft model, with the lowest microvessel density in the combination-treated tumours. We have now investigated the effect of 13cRA plus lovastatin on neuroendocrine (BON1, H727) and non-endocrine tumour (HepG2, Huh7) cell viability and signalling pathways (EGFR, AKT, ERK, p70S6K) to eluci...

Transsphenoidal adenomectomy (TSA) is the recommended primary therapy in most patients with acromegaly and results in remission for majority of microadenomas and a proportion of macroadenomas depending on extent of surgically accessible disease. Acromegaly is associated with significant mortality and morbidity, hence a combination of treatment modalities may be needed to achieve disease control.Methods: A retrospective casenotes review was conducted and ...

Introduction: Data on the mortality of patients with non-functioning pituitary macroadenoma (NFA) are limited. Aim: To assess the mortality of patients with NFA and predictive factors.Patients/methods: All patients presenting to our Department with NFA between 1963 and 2011 were studied. Status was recorded as either dead or alive, as of 31 December 2011.Results: 546 patients (333 males) were identified (median age at surgery 58.7 ...

Introduction: Data on the mortality of patients with non-functioning pituitary macroadenoma (NFA) are very limited.Aim: To assess the mortality of patients with NFA and factors predicting it.Patients and methods: All patients presenting to our department with NFA between 1963 and 2011 were studied. Status was recorded as either dead or alive, as of 31st December 2011.Results: 546 patients (333 males) were ide...