Endocrine Flashcards
Diagnostic method of choice for thyroid nodules
Fine Needle Aspiration
Clinical signs of hyperthyroidism (list 7)
Weight loss in spite of ravenous appetite, palpitations, heat intolerance, moist skin, fidgety and hyperactive behavior, tachycardia, and sometimes atrial fibrillation or flutter
Lab tests that confirm hyperthyroidism (list two)
TSH (will be low) and T4 (will be high)
“Hot adenoma” of thyroid
Thyroid nodule, almost never cancer, but can be the source of hyperfunction. Nuclear scan will show if it is the source. Pts have the option of excising the affected lobe.
Patient with “stones, bones, and abdominal groans”
Hyperparathyroidism; usually found incidentally with high calcium
Cushing disease features (7 physical and 5 medical conditions)
Round face (moon facies), ruddy face (plethora), hairy (hirsutism), buffalo hump, supraclavicular fat pads, obese trunk with abdominal stria, and thin weak extremities. Osteoporosis, diabetes, hypertension, amenorrhea, and mental instability are also present.
Lab workup for Cushing’s disease (list two)
Overnight dexamethasone suppression test, and then 24-hour urine free cortisol
Zollinger-Ellison (gastrinoma) clinical presentation
Appears as virulent peptic ulcer disease, resistant to therapy, and extensive (several ulcers rather than one, extending beyond first portion of the duodenum). Sometimes watery diarrhea.
Zollinger-Ellison workup
Measure gastrin, which can be in the thousands. If that value is on the border (in the hundreds) do secretin test. Secretin should drive gastrin down normally, fails if there’s a tumor. Locate the tumor with CT scan (with contrast) of the pancreas and nearby areas. Remove it. Omeprazole helps those with metastatic disease.
Insulinoma clinical presentation
CNS symptoms because of low blood sugar, always when the patient is fasting.
How can you tell the difference between an Insulinoma and overdose of exogenous insulin?
With exogenous insulin, insulin will be high but C-peptide will be low. Both will be high with insulinomas.
Devastating hypersecretion of insulin in the newborn, and required treatment.
Nesidioblastosis. Requires 95% pancreatectomy.
Consider this if a patient is described as having Migratory necrolytic dermatitis, resistant to all forms of therapy, with mild diabetes, a touch of anemia, glossitis, and stomatitis
Glucagonoma. resect it.
Drugs that help with metastatic, inoperable glucagonoma
Somatostatin and Streptozosin
What should you suspect in a patient with hypokalemia and hypertension? Mechanism?
Hyperaldosteronism. Aldosterone acts on the distal convoluted tubule of the kidney to increase sodium reabsorption. This causes passive reabsorption of water and increases extracellular volume and blood pressure. To balance the positively charged sodium ions, potassium is excreted in the urine.
Patient with hypokalemic, hypernatremic, metabolic alkalosis
Primary hyperaldosteronism
How to tell the difference between primary hyperaldosteronism caused by hyperplasia vs. adenoma
Hyperplasia will react appropriately to posture: more aldosterone produced upright.
No response to posture indicates adenoma.
Suspect this in thin, hyperactive women who have attacks of headache, flushing, and palpitations, with episodic or sustained extremely high blood pressure.
Pheochromocytoma
Workup for pheochromocytoma
24-hour urinary determination of vanillylmandelic acid (VMA-easy to do, but may give false positives), metanephrines (more specific), or free urinary catecholamines. Follow with CT scan of adrenal glands or radionuclide studies if looking for extraadrenal sites. Tumors are usually large.
Suspect this in patients who are typically young and have hypertension in the arms, with normal pressure (or low pressure, or no clinical pulses) in the lower extremities. Chest x-ray shows scalloping of the ribs (erosion from large collateral intercostals).
Coarctation in the aorta
Two distinct groups of patients who have renovascular hypertension
Young women with fibromuscular dysplasia or old men with arteriosclerotic occlusive disease. In both groups hypertension is resistant to the usual medications, and a telltale faint bruit over the flank or upper abdomen suggests the diagnosis.
Hypercortisolism AKA
Cushing’s syndrome
Hyperaldosteronism AKA
Conn’s syndrome
Functional adrenal tumors typically secrete which three hormones?
Cortisol (Cushing’s), Aldosterone (Conn’s), and Catecholamines (Pheochromocytoma)
Two endogenous causes of hypercortisolism
Cortisol-producing adrenal adenoma, or a tumor producing ACTH usually in pituitary (more common)
Cushing’s syndrome vs. Cushing’s disease
Syndrome = constallation of features and findings, regardless of etiology. Disease = specifically the ACTH-producing pituitary adenoma.
Great treatment for hyperaldosteronism
Spironolactone (an aldosterone antagonist)
Physical effects of hypokalemia (list 3)
Muscle cramping, muscle weakness, and rarely paralysis
Fear this cancer in a person with Cushing’s syndrome, because they’re usually found late and are very lethal
Adrenocortical Carcinoma
What is an Adrenal Incidentaloma?
An incidentally discovered mass seen on imaging performed for an unrelated reason.