Neuro Endocrinology Letters

OBJECTIVES: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a chronic mental disorder that is often hard to treat with current treatment options. Therapeutic outcomes are predicted by many factors, ranging from biological to psychosocial. Early life experiences and adult attachment influence the effectiveness of the treatment. This study explores their predictive abilities in the combined treatment of adult inpatients with OCD. METHODS: Seventy-seven patients with OCD, diagnosed according to the ICD-10 criteria, were included in the study, out of which 66 patients completed the treatment...

OBJECTIVES: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has been connected to various psychosocial factors that might influence its onset and course. Developmental factors, such as parenting styles or early adverse experiences, and adult attachment have been listed as examples. However, the research on the interconnections of these factors brought mixed results. The study explores the relationship between demographic, clinical, and selected psychosocial factors and the severity of adult OCD. METHOD: Eighty-seven pharmacoresistant inpatients with OCD were admitted between October 2019 and August 2022 for a 6-week cognitive behavioural therapy inpatient program in the psychotherapeutic department...

The association between amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is rarely seen in patients. A case of ALS-PPA with a possible reticulon 2 (RTN2) mutation was reported in this study. Moreover, we systematically reviewed the previous reports of 28 ALS cases with progressive non-fluent aphasia (PNFA) and semantic dementia (SD) to identified the unique pathologic features and strong heritability of ALS-PPA. There is a different heritability among the ALS-SD, ALS-PNFA, and the ALS-unclassified PPA groups (p=0...

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the biological factors associated with baseline peritoneal transport in uremic patients before dialysis. METHODS: Thirty patients with uremia were grouped according to their peritoneal dialysate creatinine/serum creatinine ratio (D/P) as high-transport (H, 16 cases) with D/P>0.65 and low-transport (L, 14 cases) with D/P≤0.65 one month after continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis treatment. Multi-inflammatory levels such as serum IL-6 and albumin, peritoneal IL-6 level, and microvessel density (MVD) of visceral peritoneal were compared and correlated between the two groups to determine the associated factors...

OBJECTIVES: To recommend appropriate immobilization after the initial reduction of acetabular displaced fractures in order to minimize the risk of heterotopic ossification formation. DESIGN: Retrospective study of patients treated in our surgical department during the years 2005-2018. MATERIALS AND METHODS: There were 94 patients included in statistical analysis. The factors of injury severity, course of surgery and hospitalization and incidence of complications were recorded...

Wernicke encephalopathy (WE) is an acute or subacute neurologic disorder resulting from thiamine deficiency. A Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) test is useful in addition to the clinical manifestation, which is the main basis for the diagnosis. Typical MRI findings include areas surrounding the aqueduct and third ventricle, as well as those in the medial thalamus, dorsal medulla, tectal plate, and mamillary bodies. We reported a case of WE with extensive cortical lesions. The beneficial effects of thiamine supplementation and low dosage of glucocorticoid did not sustain after discharge...

OBJECTIVE: To explore the early and late operation results and risk factors of elderly acute type-A aortic dissection. METHODS: The regression analysis was conducted on the data of patients diagnosed with acute type-A aortic dissection in our hospital from January 2018 to January 2020, and a total of 98 patients aged over 70 years were included in the study. The patients were listed into the early operation group (a total of 51 patients operated within 3 days after admission) and the late operation group (a total of 47 patients operated within 10 days after admission) according to the time of operation...

Life in societies has evolved as a response of organisms to environmental conditions. Dominance hierarchy forms an inner structure of a society which allows society members to stay together without repeated fighting. Access to resources is provided by hierarchical status. In the absence of resources, the lowest ranking individuals are the most at risk. Certain patterns of dominance hierarchy persist in modern people in Euro-American societies. Moreover, special patterns have occurred, such as parallel membership in various subgroups, voluntary access to some of the subgroups, reverse hierarchy, and tendencies towards equality...

OBJECTIVES: We tested the toxicity of ethinylestradiol, a semisynthetic estrogen used in oral contraceptives, on all-male triploid zebrafish using commercial feeds and three different doses concentrations. We aimed to determine whether ethinylestradiol peroral administration resulted in vitellogenin production and whether all-male triploid zebrafish could serve as a model species for xenoestrogen testing. METHODS: The actual concentrations of 17α-ethinylestradiol were 0...

OBJECTIVES: Hypophysectomy is a method used in analgesia in patients with painful bone metastases. The pain relief after this procedure is not pathophysiologically fully understood. In only a few studies Leksell gamma knife (LGK) was used for radiosurgical hypophysectomy. In our study, we performed the LGK hypophysectomy in patients with intractable cancer-related pain due to bone metastases and evaluated the impact of this method on pain relief. METHODS: From 1994 to 2020 we enrolled 20 patients with the diagnosis of disseminated carcinoma...

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the risk factors for acute kidney injury (AKI) occurrence in patients with spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage. METHODS: The clinical data of patients with spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage who were hospitalized in the Department of Intensive Care Medicine of the First Affiliated Hospital of Bengbu Medical College from January 2016 to August 2020 were retrospectively analyzed. The patients were divided into AKI group and non-AKI group according to whether the patient had secondary AKI, and the clinical data of the two groups were compared...

The etiology of type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM1) is not fully understood. Some studies indicate an excess or deficiency of certain trace elements may affect glucose and insulin metabolism. This study aimed to assess the concentrations of trace elements in children with newly diagnosed DM1. The study group comprised 35 children aged 3-17 years (mean, 8.83±3.55 years). Serum concentrations of selenium, zinc, copper, and arsenic were determined at the time of diagnosis, after ~2 weeks (during insulin treatment), and after 6 months...

BACKGROUND: Currently there are no widely applied methods which could identify, at the time of head trauma, those mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) patients who later develop pituitary dysfunction. The effect of alcohol consumption on post-TBI endocrine dysfunction is unclear. METHODS: Five hundred and eight TBI patients, 406 of them with mTBI, were studied. Sixty-one patients (46 males, 15 females) were available for follow-up. Admission serum samples were evaluated for S100B protein and markers of alcohol consumption: ethanol level for day-of-injury intake and carbohydrate deficient transferrin (CDT) level for regular alcohol consumption...

OBJECTIVE: Parathyroid carcinoma (PC) is a rare disease with high rates of misdiagnosis and recurrence. This report summarized the clinical and pathological characteristics of 10 patients with PC at our hospital, to improve the early recognition and prognosis of PC. METHODS: The clinical manifestations, imaging findings, pathological features, treatments, and prognostic data of 10 patients diagnosed with PC at the First Medical Center, Chinese PLA General Hospital from 2003 to 2021 were analyzed...

Hemichorea can be the first clinical manifestation of an ischemic stroke, especially in the acute phase of a stroke, but hemichorea is extremely rare as a clinical manifestation of acute ischemic stroke and is easy to misdiagnose. Extending the therapeutic time window of intravenous thrombolysis and endovascular thrombectomy increases the likelihood of a bad clinical outcome. Herein we report a rare case of acute ischemic stroke with hemichorea as a clinical manifestation. A magnetic resonance angiography showed mild luminal stenosis of the anterior and middle cerebral arteries bilaterally and severe stenosis of the M1 segment of the right middle cerebral artery...

OBJECTIVE: Our study aimed to screen for obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) in a clinical population of psychiatric patients with affective disorders and risk factors for OSA using screening devices in psychiatric clinical environments. METHODS: Inpatients admitted with mood disorders in an inpatient psychiatric department were selected via inclusion and exclusion criteria and assessed for the risk factors of OSA. The inclusion criteria were: a diagnosis of an affective disorder confirmed by two independent psychiatrists, snoring or apnoeic pauses witnessed during regular night check-ups by nurses, and BMI > 25 kg/m2...

BACKGROUND: Few articles have reported the immune reaction secondary to botulinum toxin type A (BTxA) injection. To date, no data have reported BTxA-induced demyelinating encephalopathy with positive anti-acetylcholine receptor antibody (anti-AChR Ab). CASE PRESENTATION: A 40-year-old woman developed an acute demyelinating encephalopathy 40 days after cosmetic use of low-dose BTxA injection for face lift. One week before the onset of demyelination, she manifested syndromes such as viral infection...

BACKGROUND: Patients with adrenal Cushing's syndrome (ACS) typically present with central obesity, hirsutism, hypertension, or glucose intolerance, which can be easily identified by a clinical physician. However, recognizing those with subclinical CS or those with less common symptoms and signs is challenging to the subspecialist, which can lead to delayed diagnosis and treatment. We report a case who presented with repeated vertebral fractures in 6 months. Typical physical appearance of CS was not shown so that suspicions were not raised until severe osteoporosis was demonstrated from bone marrow density study...

OBJECTIVE: Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1) is a rare disorder characterized by tumors in various endocrine glands. It is caused by a mutation in the MEN1 gene. This gene encodes menin, a protein that regulates cell proliferation. The clinical manifestation of the syndrome most commonly involves hyperparathyroidism and pancreatic, pituitary gland, and adrenocortical adenomas. Although the first symptoms of the disease usually occur in patients under the age of 20, the data on MEN1 in children is scarce...

This report details the case of a 41-year-old woman who was diagnosed with insulinoma. As the patient developed severe life-threatening hypoglycemia, we introduced Dexcom G4 Platinum (DG4P), a modern continuous glucose-monitoring system (CGM). The algorithm of the sensor glucose (SG) values of CGM is based on patients with diabThis report details the case of a 41-year-old woman who was diagnosed with insulinoma. As the patient developed severe life-threatening hypoglycemia, we introduced Dexcom G4 Platinum (DG4P), a modern continuous glucose-monitoring system (CGM)...