Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) is widely used for the treatment of symptomatic hypogonadism in men. However, data on prescription behaviours of TRT are limited. The objective of this study was to investigate clinical characteristics associated with the likelihood of being prescribed TRT by general practitioners (GPs) in North West London (NWL).Methods: We carried out a retrospective cohort study using Discover database of GP-registere...

Central precocious puberty (CPP) is a common and well-recognised condition characterised by premature activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, with consequent potential adverse health and psychosocial outcomes. Standard management of CPP is with periodic injections of gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogue therapy. Decapeptyl SR (Triptorelin pamoate) has for several years been available as a long-acting (12-weekly, 11.25 mg) preparation, but more recently is ava...

A 44 year old gentleman presented to his local hospital with a two week history of fevers and rigors. Blood cultures were positive for Streptococcus oralis, and an echocardiogram confirmed new diagnosis of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) complicated by mitral valve infective endocarditis (IE). Unfortunately, this required a mechanical mitral valve replacement (MVR) and he started warfarin (INR target 2.5-3.5). During his admission, he reported chronic headaches. An MRI brain...

A 44-year-old gentleman presented to the Emergency Department with a 2-week history of fever and rigors. Past medical history was unremarkable other than an earlier diagnosis of hypertension. He was noted to have new onset atrial fibrillation with rapid ventricular response; a diagnosis of hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM) was made on echocardiography. In addition, a vegetation was identified on the mitral valve. Treatment for infective endocarditis (Streptoco...

A 57-year-old woman with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes (HbA1c 148 mmol/mol) presented acutely with lower back pain, in the absence of trauma. Her WHO performance status score was 2. 18 months earlier she had developed a left fifth toe ulcer, resulting in left forefoot amputation six months later which had not healed. She had also developed a neuropathic ulcer in her right hallux, complicated by osteomyelitis. Despite excellent peripheral vasculature, conservative therapy w...

Although the sodium iodide symporter (NIS) is expressed in 70–80% of breast cancers, only 20–30% is located at the plasma membrane (PM) and therefore functional. Previous work in thyroid cells leads demonstrated that PBF redistributes NIS from the PM into intracellular vesicles, potently reducing radioiodide uptake. We therefore examined whether increased membranous NIS could facilitate radioiodide therapy for breast cancer. Immunofluorescent microscopy revealed co-l...

The clinical effectiveness of ablative radioiodine treatment is limited by the ability of the sodium iodide symporter (NIS) to uptake 131I. A significant proportion of well-differentiated thyroid tumours are unable to concentrate sufficient radioiodine for effective therapy, and in other tumour models such as breast, where radioiodine uptake would be an attractive therapeutic option, uptake is insufficient. Pituitary tumor-transforming gene-binding factor (PBF/ PTTG...

Pituitary tumor transforming gene (PTTG) binding factor (PBF) is a proto-oncogene which is frequently upregulated in endocrine cancers. PBF has previously been determined to contain several putative signal sequences within its 180 amino acids. Previous studies have shown the nuclear localisation signal (NLS) to be functional and prediction software now suggests the presence of a putative leucine-rich nuclear export signal (NES) between residues 17 and 27. PBF is known to shutt...

p53 is rarely mutated in thyroid papillary carcinomas, despite the thyroid being highly sensitive to ionising radiation. The pituitary tumor transforming gene binding factor (PBF) is a proto-oncogene overexpressed in thyroid cancer. Oncogenic levels of PBF result in cell transformation in vitro and tumourigenesis in vivo. By serendipity we have found that PBF interacts directly with the tumour suppressor protein p53. In light of these data we have investigated th...

The human pituitary tumor transforming gene is overexpressed in thyroid cancers; inducing genetic instability through its role as a securin and propagating growth through induction of growth factors. We have demonstrated reduced cellular proliferation following hPTTG overexpression in neuronal cells. We hypothesised targeted hPTTG overexpression in mouse thyroids will result in hyperplastic/neoplastic growth and that stimulation of thyroid cell growth through standard methods ...