Endocrine Abstracts

With the advent of vaptans as a therapeutic option, rapid and precise diagnosis of SIADH is essential. SIADH due to paraneoplastic stimulation of AVP is an expected but not the only cause of hyponatraemia in cancer patients. Therefore a precise evaluation of the cause of hyponatraemia is necessary before any therapeutic approach. Using Copeptin, a stable marker of AVP, which is stoichiometrically released with AVP, we evaluated 49 patients with hyponatremia due to various form...

Copeptin is a stable AVP marker and stoichiometrically released with AVP. It closely reflects changes in water balance. Its stimulation in severe stress has recently has been suggested in various pathophysiological conditions including myocardial infarction and stroke. Paraneoplastic stimulation of AVP/copeptin is expected in patients with cancer leading to hyponatraemia due to SIADH.Here, we evaluated copeptin levels in 50 patients with hyponatraemia du...

Copeptin is a stable AVP marker and stoichiometrically released with AVP. It closely reflects changes in water balance. Its stimulation in severe stress has recently has been suggested for the early diagnosis of myocardial infarction but clear definition of the physiological variability is necessary. Here, we studied the pulsatile and circadian variation in healthy individuals and compared copeptin to cortisol rhythms.Copeptin levels were sampled every 2...

Objective: The response of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis to stress is mediated mainly through corticotrophin-releasing hormone and vasopressin. Accordingly, vasopressin levels are increased in septic shock. However, measurement of vasopressin is difficult because of its instability and short half-life. Copeptin is a more stable peptide derived from the same precursor molecule. This study aims to evaluate copeptin levels and its prognostic value in a prospective observ...

Background: Copeptin is used as a diagnostic marker for acute myocardial infarction, adrenomedullin as a prognostic marker for congestive heart failure. Both hormones may be involved in pathophysiology of metabolic syndrome.Methods: We have used sera of the ‘Silent diabetes study’ (1). Sera of 920 patients were eligible for this analysis. All patients underwent an oral glucose tolerance test, patients with previously known diabetes were exclude...

Background: Stroke is the second commonest reason of mortality worldwide and a major cause of long term disability. Early prediction of outcome is important for allocation of therapeutic strategies. Endocrine alterations of the hypothalamus–pituitary–axis (HPA) are one of the first stress-induced alterations after cerebral ischemia. We evaluated the prognostic value of cortisol for outcome in acute ischemic cerebrovascular events.Method: In an ...

A patient was referred to us because he had hypokalemic hypertension and no detectable blood concentrations of renin and aldosterone. In addition, this patient had an adrenal mass. Since he was hyponatremic, he was put on fludrocortisone.At presentation, we found that the patient was normonatremic and hypokalemic and had a high sodium to urinary sodium to potassium to urinary potassium (SUSPUP) ratio. But review of older laboratory results showed an inad...

Adrenomedullin is a vasoactive peptide originally discovered in extracts of human pheochromocytoma. It is highly expressed in plasma and adipose tissue of obese subjects and considered as a member of the adipokine family. Adrenomedullin inhibits adipogenesis under the transcriptional control of insulin. We determined plasma adrenomedullin concentrations in a cohort of 360 healthy subjects and found a very significant positive correlation to body mass index (BMI). In parallel, ...

Introduction: The incidence of water and electrolyte disturbances following traumatic brain injury (TBI) is considerable and has been attributed to a dysregulation of the hypothalamic peptide arginine-vasopressin (AVP). Copeptin, the C-terminal part of the AVP prohormone, is stoichiometrically secreted together with mature AVP. Due to his long ex vivo stability, the AVP precursor, copeptin, can be used as a surrogate of AVP readily to be measured in serum or plasma. In ...

Objective: Neurotensin is an anorexigenic peptide produced mainly in the N-cells of the ileum; levels are decreased in obese subjects and increase after bariatric surgery. This study is the first to compare the baseline and postoperative levels of neurotensin in patients after gastric bypass, gastric banding, and non-operated controls, respectively, during long-term follow-up.Patients and Methods: Overnight fasting plasma neurotensin levels were measured...