A Rare Case Of Metastatic Insulinoma In A Patient With Huntington’s Disease

A Rare Case Of Metastatic Insulinoma In A Patient With Huntington’s Disease Olesya Petrenko, DO Providence Portland Medical Center – Portland, OR Additional Authors: Brinton Clark, MD, FACP A 49-year-old female with past medical history of Huntington’s disease presents to the ED after being found unresponsive at her assisted-living facility. She was noted to be hypoglycemic with a glucose of 21 and responded to dextrose. For the past several months, patient had symptoms of dizziness, tremors. She has no history of diabetes, and only home medication is Zyprexa. Patient required D10 drip to maintain glucose levels. Given patient’s psychiatric history, there was concern for surreptitious use of diabetic medications. Labwork showed an insulin level of 163 and an elevated C-peptide of 7.0 consistent with endogenous insulin secretion. Patient underwent a 72-hour fasting protocol which revealed a glucose of 23, C-peptide of 4.1 and insulin of 101, undetectable beta-hydroxybutyrate levels and pro-insulin level of 782 (normal \u3c8), which are consistent with a diagnosis of insulinoma. She was started on diazoxide, which diminishes insulin secretion, to treat the hypoglycemia. Patient underwent a pancreas CT protocol which showed multiple hypervascular hepatic masses up to 9 cm and one 4 cm mass in pancreatic tail concerning for metastasis. Pathology revealed metastatic well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumor grade 3. She was not a candidate for surgical resection of tumors and she was started on Octreotide 200 mcg TID. Patient underwent two Y90 therasphere radioembolization treatments, 2 months apart with improvement of hypoglycemia and discontinuation of diazoxide. Patient remains on Octreotide LAR injection every 4 weeks with frequent glucose monitoring. Insulinoma, although rare, occurs in 1-4% of the population and is the most common type of functional neuroendocrine tumor of the pancreas. It secretes insulin which results in hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemia. Diagnosis involves persistent hypoglycemia with glucose \u3c50 mg/dL, neuroglycopenic symptoms and prompt relief after glucose administration. Gold standard diagnosis is a 72-hour fast and measurement of plasma insulin, C-peptide and pro-insulin, which detects 99% of insulinomas. After lab confirmation, imaging is necessary to localize the tumor with either CT, MRI or EUS. Surgical resection is curative in most patients. Other treatment modalities include injection of octreotide, EUS-aided alcohol ablation, radio-frequency ablation or embolization of insulinoma, as well as targeted therapy with everolimus or sunitinib. Malignant insulinomas are extremely rare and often invade into surrounding soft tissue or have lymph node or liver metastasis. They are usually unresectable and require targeted therapy. We present the case of a 49-YO patient with Huntington’s disease who presented with severe persistent hypoglycemia secondary to metastatic insulinoma. Diagnosis of insulinoma is often delayed or missed as symptoms may be attributed to psychiatric, cardiac or neurological disorders or medication misuse. Clinicians should be aware of insulinoma as a cause of life-threatening hypoglycemia.https://digitalcommons.psjhealth.org/ppmc_internal/1012/thumbnail.jp

A REPORT BY THE ALL - PARTY PARLIAMENTARY GROUP ON A FIT AND HEALTHY CHILDHOOD THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INEQUALITIES ON CHILDREN’S HEALTH

A child born into circumstances of social and economic inequality in the 21st century United Kingdom will start life with one hand tied behind their back. Nowhere is the disparity of experience more marked than in that of health and this, in turn, impacts the entire life course. In the same way that priority is given to securing the national infrastructure, prioritising the health of children from all areas and in all circumstances from the outset would therefore seem to be prudent rather than profligate. Yet as this Report demonstrates,successive Governments have skimped rather thansaved; failedto build upon existing policy and played a costly policy game of ‘catching up later’ instead of deploying the early ntervention me asures that are cheaper andmore effective in the long term

Genome sequencing reveals Zika virus diversity and spread in the Americas

Although the recent Zika virus (ZIKV) epidemic in the Americas and its link to birth defects have attracted a great deal of attention, much remains unknown about ZIKV disease epidemiology and ZIKV evolution, in part owing to a lack of genomic data. Here we address this gap in knowledge by using multiple sequencing approaches to generate 110 ZIKV genomes from clinical and mosquito samples from 10 countries and territories, greatly expanding the observed viral genetic diversity from this outbreak. We analysed the timing and patterns of introductions into distinct geographic regions; our phylogenetic evidence suggests rapid expansion of the outbreak in Brazil and multiple introductions of outbreak strains into Puerto Rico, Honduras, Colombia, other Caribbean islands, and the continental United States. We find that ZIKV circulated undetected in multiple regions for many months before the first locally transmitted cases were confirmed, highlighting the importance of surveillance of viral infections. We identify mutations with possible functional implications for ZIKV biology and pathogenesis, as well as those that might be relevant to the effectiveness of diagnostic tests

Diabetes Care in the San Francisco County Jail

Chronic disease management is becoming increasingly important in correctional settings, especially diabetes. We conducted a retrospective chart review of diabetic inmates in San Francisco County Jail and examined the sociodemographic characteristics, markers of disease status, and compliance with jail-specific care guidelines within this setting. We found high rates of compliance with immediate-term care guidelines (e.g., finger-stick glucose and blood pressure checks at intake) but less success in providing the more complex care required for chronic diseases. Inmates’ age, race, and gender did not affect likelihood of meeting guidelines