Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: To investigate long-term effects of GH replacement therapy.Material and methods: Thirty-nine patients (mean age 52.5 years, 14 women) with adult-onset growth hormone deficiency (AOGHD), recruited from a randomized placebo-controlled crossover study of treatment with growth hormone (GH) and placebo for 9months each, were enrolled in an open prospective follow up study. GH replacement was given for additional thirty-three months and was individu...

Many endocrine disorders bear an immunological component and involve local cytokines as paracrine signals. Moreover, certain auto-antibodies appear as causative pathological agents in some of the most common endocrine diseases e.g. in type I diabetes mellitus or different forms of autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD). Recently, selenium (Se) status and selenoproteins have emerged as important modifiers of the inflammatory response, AITD or sepsis. Notably, mortality risk of patie...

A 21-year-old man presented with tonic–clonic seizures and two-week history of nocturnal headaches, sweatiness, hot flushes and abdominal pain. Blood pressure was 220/110 mmHg and pulse 120–160 bpm. A GTN infusion was commenced and the blood pressure improved to 150/90 mmHg. Examination revealed a large, hard mass in the left hypochondrium. There was no palpable lymphadenopathy and no papilloedema. A 2 cm hard, irregular mass was present on the left testis. CT showed...

Patients with craniopharyngioma are frequently obese with a high prevalence of vascular morbidity. Many patients with treated craniopharyngioma have severe GH deficiency (GHD), which independently results in abnormal body composition and increased cardiovascular risk. This study investigated how GH treatment influences body composition in adults with treated craniopharyngioma and GHD.Using the electronic database Diabeta3® we identified 50 patients ...

Recent reports confirmed increased SSTR expression in the thyroid in some cases of Graves’ disease and hot nodules. It is still not known, whether SSTRs can frequently be found in other thyroid pathologies or normal thyroid glands. Therefore, we performed a systematic analysis of Ga-68-Dotatoc PET Scans for their thyroid image.Eighty-three consecutive patients undergoing Ga-68-Dotatoc PET were analysed for their relative thyroid uptake by ROI techni...

There is a well documented link between melatonin and insulin. Morphological, molecular and functional investigations have shown that the pineal hormone melatonin (MT) influences the insulin secretion. The effects were mediated by specific, high-affinity, pertussis-toxin-sensitive, G-protein-coupled MT1- as well as MT2-membrane receptors which were detected in pancreatic tissue and islets of rats and humans and additionally in rat insulinoma cells INS1. Using the Gi-protein-ad...

Background: Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) can progress to hepatic fibrosis and end-stage liver disease. Hepatic stellate cells (HSC) are the central mediators of liver fibrosis. The molecular mechanisms linking hepatic steatosis to activation of HSC, thereby promoting inflammation and fibrosis, are mainly unknown. Here, we demonstrate a novel in vitro model to study the effect of hepatic lipid accumulation on HSC.Methods and results:...

Recently updated international guidelines recommend specialist surveillance of adults with Turner Syndrome (TS). In 2005, we established a dedicated TS clinic, attracting referrals from our general endocrine service and other specialities including primary care.Twenty-three patients currently attend of whom 9 were previously under endocrinology review. Karyotypes include 45XO (8/23), 45XO/46XrX (4/23), and 45XO/46XiXq (3/23). Mean (±S.D.</sma...

Initial clinical trials with pegvisomant at doses of up to 80 mg once weekly led to a 30% fall in IGF-I. Subsequently, daily administration of up to 40 mg/day (280 mg/week) achieved an IGF-I within reference range in 97% of patients. Pegvisomant’s half-life is >70 h suggesting weekly dosing may be possible using higher doses than in the original trials.We performed a two-centre, open-label prospective study in seven patients (4M, 3F, mean age 57...

Deiodinases (5′-D1, 5′-D2, 5-D3) control the systemic and local bioavailability of thyroid hormones by removing iodine from their substrates. Thyronamine (T0AM) and 3-iodothyronamine (3-T1AM) are possible novel metabolites of classical thyroid hormones which have been demonstrated to occur endogenously and to display unique effects such as reducing body temperature in mice and activating the plasma membrane bound G-Protein coupled receptor TAAR1 (Scanlan et al.<...