ACUTE ENDOCRINOLOGY FROM CAUSE TO CONSEQUENCE

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Author : GREET VAN DEN BERGHE

Published in : Humana Press

ISBN No.  : 978-1-60327-177-6

File Type : pdf

File Size : 4 mb


Language : English

Description

Until recently, endocrinology and critical care medicine were two specialties in medicine that were rather uncomfortable with each other and hence quite isolated. Fortunately, these two ‘alien’ disciplines have joined forces in successful attempts to perform high quality research in order to clarify the unknown. By integrating endocrinology in critical care medicine, or vice-versa depending on the specialty of the observer, new experimental and clinical data on the complex endocrine and metabolic derangements accompanying non-endocrine severe illnesses came available which generated important novel insights with relevant clinical implications. In addition, the state of the art diagnosis and management of primary endocrine diseases that represent life-threatening situations leading to ICU admission has been updated. This issue of Contemporary Endocrinology aims at compiling the new findings. The book indeed covers both areas of ‘Acute Endocrinology’ that are often taking care of at very distant sites within hospitals. The first part deals with the classical life-threatening illnesses caused by primary endocrine diseases such as thyrotoxicosis, hypothyroidism, acute adrenal crisis, acute calcium disorders, pheochromocytoma, severe hyper- and hypoglycemia . The second part looks at endocrinology from the ICU side, starting with a general overview of the dynamic neuroendocrine and metabolic stress responses in the condition of intensive care-dependent, non-endocrine critical illness. Alterations within several of the endocrine axes briefly touched upon in the overview chapter are then further discussed in detail in the following chapters: critical illness induced alterations within the growth hormone axis, the thyroid axis and the pituitary adrenal axis, changes in catecholamines, glucose control, and salt and water metabolism. This last chapter on salt and water disturbances bridges both the endocrine and non-endocrine causes and their specific approaches. I am confident that this book provides a unique and up-to-date overview of the state of the art knowledge of interest to the most alien of disciplines in medicine and stimulates further interdisciplinary research in this important and exciting field.