Endo Flashcards
Important questions for thyroid eye disease
Whats bothering them most eg vision / discomfort
Swelling / redness / puffy
-Previous hayfever
Issues with eye movements
Any visual loss/ ability to focus / double vision
Unable to close eyelids
Thyroid history - what would warrant same day / very urgent opthal review
Visual loss / symptoms
Neck lump history key points
Is this new
- goitre often very long standing
- New is more concerning
issues with swallowing or speaking
Pain
Thyroid status
Questions for thyroid status?
Other key parts of history?
Head and general
Anxiety and mood
Energy levels
Weight
Eye symptoms
neck lump / pain
Chest
Palps
chest pain
Bowel
Bowel habit changes
Periods
tremors
Social
- SMOKING - big risk for eye disease. Must council on this
- Pregnancy especially post partum
- Seaweed - lots of iodine
DH
-Amiodarone (often long time lag)
-Lithium
-Biologics (sometimes years leater)
Surgical history
How thyroitoxic do you need to be to have thyroid eye disease
You can have it and be euthyroid / without thyrotoxicosis
Thyroid exam
Eyes
- look from side
- Any redness / Swelling
- Lid retraction
- Eye movements
Vision
Snellen chart
Fundoscopy
Neck
- Throidectomy scar
- feel for lump
- feel when swallows / sticks tongue out
-Any tenderness
- Auscultate for bruis
Hands
- warm
- sweat
- tremor
- Pulse / Atrial fibrillation
Shins
- Pre tibial myoxdema (often like orange peel)
- Deep tendon reflexes
Throid exam and this
Conjunctival injection
When doing snellen chart what should you ask to speed things up
Whats the lowest line you can read
Someone with thyroidectomy scar but signs of thyrotoxicosis
May have been partial thyroidectomy
Multinodular goitre may grow back again if some tissue left
Why thyrotoxicosis get bruis in neck
Increased blood flow from metabolically active thyroid
pre tibial myxodema
Post partum thyroiditis painful?
Can be often not.
Thyroiditis not always painful - DONT get side tracked by absence of pain
Differentials of thyroid neck lump
Short time period
- Need to rule out Cancer
Longer
- Cyst
- Nodule / multi nodular goitre
- Adenoma sometimes
Investigations in neck lump / thyrotoxicosis
Bloods
- TFTs - TSH / T3/T4
- TSH receptor antibody (graves)
US
Thyroid uptake scan
Ophthalmology review if any concern
Who has raised TSH receptor antibody
- Graves
- Thyroid eye disease
- Sometimes amiodarone (induces the antibodies)
[Usually negative in multi nodular goitre]
Why can you get thyroid eye disease without thyrotoxicosis
Eye disease is caused by the TSH receptor antibodies
Do you treat sub clinical thyrotoxicosis
Yes
- They have high risk of developing osteoporosis / AF if not
Most important red flags thyroid what would you do?
Visal loss including acuity
compelx opthalmoplegia
High dose steroids
Mild thyroid eye disease treatment
Stop smoking
Lubricating eye drops
Treat hyperthyroid
Thyroid eye disease steroids not working - whats next
Immunomodulators
Eg rituximab
Radiotherapy of orbits
Orbital decompression - last line
Hypothyroid patients often have what else on thier bloods? what do you do?
Raised cholesterol
Often improves with throxine replacement
When and how should you take thyroxine
on an empty stomach
Calcium eg milk reduces absorption significantly
Treatment for graves?
When for each?
Symptoms
- Propranolol 40mg TDS
Carbimazole
Propylthiouracil
- Used for women who are pregnant or breast feeding
Why propranolol specifically in thyrotoxicosis
Reduces conversion to t4 in peripheries
2 Main options style of thyrotoxicosis management
Titration
Block and replace
- Eg high dose carbimazole with thyroxine replacement
(Use if significant thyroid eye disease and want very close control)
Key thing to council patients when treating with antithyroid meds
Agranulocytosis
“If you get a severe sore throat you must stop taking this medication and present to hospital”
When would you use radio iodine or surgery in graves
Toxic multinodular goitre
- Good 1st line treatment
Graves
-Usually get a 12-18 month course of carbimazole then stop
-In 2/3 will get relapse and then its worth thinking of more definitive treatment
Key issues with radio iodine
2 weeks isolation at home
Especially avoid young children
Not if planning pregnancy -> fetal hypothyroidism
May end up with underactive thyroid.
Who must NOT get radioactive iodine
people with ongoing thyroid eye disease -> Makes it worse
Pregnant / planning
Acromegaly focused history
Brian
- Headaches
- Visual field loss
- Deafness
Snoring / OSA
Cardio
- Hypertension
- Diabetes - polyuria / dypsia
- Worse control
Sweating
Pituitary symptoms
- Libido
- Menstrual history
- Tired
- Dizzy
Bone changes
- Shape of face / jaw
- Hands and feet eg rings not fitting
- Carpal tunnel
- Dentition - Widening teeth gaps
Calcium
- Polyuria
- Bone pain
Family history
- Acromegally
- Endocrine - MEN1 / carney complex
Social history
- How affects function
- Smoking / alcohol CV health
Acromegaly exam
Hands
- Size, sweat, coarse skin
- Pulse
- Pain on joints
Carpal tunnel exam
- Tinnels / phalens
BP
Neck
- Acanthosis nigrans in neck
- Goitre + palpate thyroid with swallow
- Inspect face and teeth
Eyes
Fundoscopy
RAPD / accomdation
Visual field testing
Eye mocements
- I would like to complete a full cardiovascular assessment
- BP
- ECG (LVH)
- Epsworth sleep score
- Capillary blood glucose
How to present acromegaly
This patient has prominent supaorbital ridges and a large lower jaw, ears and nose.
His hands are large doughy and spade like and his skin is coarse and sweaty
There is evidence of bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome with thenar eminence wasting bilaterally and impaired sensation in the distrobution of the median nerve
There is increased interdental spacing and macroglosia.
There is evidecne of acanthosis nigrans.
He has a bitemporal hemaniopia
I would like to check a blood sugar and blood pressure
Acromegaly investigations
Make the diagnosis
- IGF - 1
- Glucose tolerance test with GH response
-> If positive refer to endocrine and book a MRI pituitary
Then assess complications
- ECG +/- Echo
- HBA1C, lipid profile
- Pituitary profile: 9am cortisol, T4 and TSH, Prolactin, Testosterone, LSH / FH
- Renal profile - Especially for hypoNa
- Calcium - Parathyroid adenomas in MEN1
- Visual field testing
- If OSA -> Sleep studies
- If carpal tunnel -> nerve studies
Why dont you measure GH in acromegaly
Anterior pit produces growth hormone in pulses
-> stimulates liver to produce Igf-1 continuously
ie GH levels vary through day
Acromegaly treatment
Education
Optomise CV health
Diabetes management
Surgery
- May have some medical management pre op Eg carbegoline
Acromegaly medical management
Dopamine agonists
- Bromocriptine / carbegoline
Somatostatin analouges
- All injectable
- Ocretide
Complications of pit surgery
- Meningitis
- Haemorrhage
- Tumours close to optic chiasm - optic ischemia (often if been stretched by tumour and then sags down post op.)
- Transient diabetes insipidus / hypopituitary