Endocrine Abstracts

INTRODUCTION: Brittleness is a well-known phenomenon in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM). The possibility of a similar theme in the context of Addison's disease is not well established. CASE STUDY: We describe a 22-year-old woman who has had Addison's disease since the age of 9 years and type 1 DM since the age of 18 years. She was admitted with acute medical problems 47 times and attended OPD clinics on 17 occasions in 5 years (1996-2000). Of these, 29 inpatient an...

The relentless rise in the prevalence of obesity predicts an exponential increase in the incidence of obesity-related complications. Whereas preventative lifestyle measures must remain the cornerstone of management for the population at large, there remains a growing cohort of patients who remain in the severe obese (BMI>40 kg/m2) category and who suffer from the associated co-morbidities. Medical treatments may be sufficient for lesser degrees of obesity, for t...

Lymphocytic hypophysitis (LYH) is an unusual pituitary disorder in which an inflammatory process compromises normal anterior and posterior pituitary function, and produces a mass effect on adjacent structures....

Treatment of acromegaly aims primarily to reverse the increased mortality and morbidity associated with active disease to that of the non-acromegalic population. Recent evidence indicates that the best biochemical criteria for successful treatment should be a mean GH<2micrograms per litre (approximately 4milliunits per litre). Although a 'test dose' of octreotide (OTD) is recommended prior to use of depot somatostatin analogues (SSAs), there remains no consensus regarding t...

A 46 year old female presented with 12 months history of secondary amenorrhoea. Prolactin was 4746 mIU/l without macroprolactin complexes, LH & FSH were low, oestradiol was undetectable. She had normal visual fields. No other clinical or biochemical features of pituitary dysfunction. She had no regular medication. Pituitary MRI was normal. She was started on cabergoline 250 mcg twice weekly which was subsequently increased to 500 mcg twice weekly. Repeat serum prolactin 5 ...

Background: Gonadotroph adenomas usually present as non-functioning pituitary adenomas.We describe a patient with a functioning gonadotroph adenoma presenting with ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome: an exceptionally rare presentation of pituitary disease.Case history: A 26-year-old female presented with a 10-year history of worsening lower abdominal pain, bloating, dysmenorrhea and irregular periods in 2006. She was found by ultrasound to have multiple o...

Intro: A subset of pancreatic and gastric neuroendocrine tumours (NET) are associated with hypercalcaemia attributed to tumour secretion of parathyroid hormone related peptide (PTHrP). Hypercalcaemia may be severe and refractory to conventional treatment....

ObjectiveBariatric surgery has an important role in the management of morbidly obese patients. Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) is an established bariatric procedure. In this study, we aimed to investigate prospective changes in the entero-hypothalamic endocrine axis following RYGB, examining the meal-stimulated responses of peptide-YY (PYY), glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) and ghrelin.MethodsSix female patien...

Background: Obese subjects are usually in a positive energy balance despite their best efforts to lose weight. This study aimed to determine if hunger, nausea and satiety levels differ in lean and obese subjects after consuming varying calorific meals.Method: Following an overnight fast, test meals of 250, 500, 1000, 2000 and 3000 kcal were consumed by 19 lean and 19 obese subjects. Hunger, nausea and satiety levels were measured using visual analogue sc...

We have evaluated the effectiveness of radiotherapy in three patients with recurrent symptomatic hypophysitis following surgical decompression.Case 1(54 F); presented with diabetes insipidus, hypopituitarism and a large hypophyseal mass. Following trans-sphenoidal surgery (TSS), a diagnosis of xanthomatous hypophysitis was made. Two years later severe headaches returned, and despite a second trans-sphenoidal procedure, visual acuity further deteriorated in the left eye...