Endocrine Abstracts

Most endocrinologists are aware of biological rhythms. As undergraduates, we might learn about the menstrual cycle in humans, seasonal changes in reproductive physiology in many animal species, and the circadian and ultradian patterns of cortisol secretion. In recent decades, research has started to uncover the full scope of the circadian clock’s influence on physiology (and pathophysiology). It is increasingly clear that we need to account for this in experimental design. In this workshop, I...

Parents of children with adrenal insufficiency are taught to administer a hydrocortisone intramuscular (IM) injection in an adrenal crisis. This involves assembling a needle and syringe and drawing up a dose from a vial. It is known that parents report high confidence levels in administration of the injection but at the time of acute illness actual administration is poor. This study set out to see if introducing a planned refresher session for families would impact confidence ...

Introduction: Childhood obesity is associated with complications, such as type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The use of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) in diabetes mellitus is well established, but there is limited research evaluating the role of CGM in childhood obesity. The aim of this study was to investigate the use of CGM in identifying glycaemic dysregulation in children and young people (CYP) with obesity and the effect of lifestyle therapy.<p cla...

Case history: A 39 year old lady was being investigated and managed for premature ovarian insufficiency (onset aged 29y) associated with an unusual constellation of symptoms. Following normal childhood and pubertal development, she subsequently developed fatigue, multiple gastrointestinal symptoms and was underweight with evidence of weight loss, and a most recent BMI of 17 kg/m2. She had previously been reviewed due to marked absence of subcutaneous fat in the lowe...

Adrenal incidentaloma is a clinically silent adrenal mass detected on imaging performed for unrelated reasons. The concern is whether the incidentaloma is malignant or hypersecreting. The most comprehensive existing guidelines on investigation and management come from NIH Consensus Development Programme.We aimed to determine how many are identified by radiology over 12 months; how many of these are referred to endocrinology; how many are appropriately in...

Background: There are nearly 5 million people with diabetes mellitus in the UK with an estimated 10% of diabetes patients developing a foot ulcer at some point in their lives. Nearly 9500 diabetes-related amputations are reported in the UK per year and approximately 80% of the NHS budget on diabetes care is spent on treating complications. Limb/life-threatening diabetic foot problems are referred to acute services immediately and all other active diabetic foot diseases are ref...

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic prevented face-to-face school diabetes training in 2020/2021 at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Moving school training online was the only viable option to ensure children with type 1 diabetes could attend school.Objectives: 1. Develop an online school training package with competency assessment for all diabetes devices 2. Audit the number of staff competent and the cost and acceptability of the t...

Introduction: Raised intracranial pressure is a well-documented complication of obesity in the adult population, but this remains under-recognised in children and young people. The pathophysiology for this association remains unclear, but the complications of raised intracranial pressure can be devastating including potential visual loss. Therefore, the aim of our study was to investigate this link in children and young people.Method: Retrospective data ...

Background: Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is a complication of Diabetes Mellitus and is a life-threatening medical emergency usually requiring admission to an intensive care unit. There is no established guideline regarding timing of initiation of oral/enteral feeding in DKA patients.Purpose: To determine if there is a difference in clinical outcomes for DKA patients whose oral/enteral feeding was started early vs patients whose feeding was started beyond ...

We work in a service at UCLH in London which cares for young people and adults with differences of sex development. Among other diagnoses CAH makes up quite a lot of our cohort of patients. Adolescents with CAH that our team see include those born with atypical genitalia who may have had, or have not had surgery in childhood on their clitoris or vagina. We also see adolescents with CAH who have issues with puberty and their periods. For adolescents with issues with their genit...