Pituitary stalk interruption syndrome

A 5-year-old boy presented at the department of Pediatrics because of parental concerns about his delayed growth which had been slowing since the age of 2.5 years. The patient had no significant familial, perinatal or past medical history. At clinical examination, no abnormalities were present. His stature was below the 5th percentile. Laboratory investigations showed normal serum values of TSH, FT4 and prolactin, but an abnormally low IGF-1 concentration. Bone age (Gruelich and Pyle) was 3 years and 6 months, more than one year below his chronological age. MRI of the brain was performed to rule out a hypothalamichypophyseal lesion (Fig. A-D). Midsagittal T1-weighted MR imaging revealed a small sella with a hypoplastic anterior pituitary gland (dotted arrow). The pituitary stalk was extremely hypoplastic and barely perceptible (dashed arrow). An ectopic posterior pituitary gland (solid arrow) was observed as an area of T1 high signal intensity at the median eminence in the floor of the third ventricle between the right and left optic tract (small arrows)

EMODnet Workshop on mechanisms and guidelines to mobilise historical data into biogeographic databases

The objective of Workpackage 4 of the European Marine Observation and Data network (EMODnet) is to fill spatial and temporal gaps in European marine species occurrence data availability by carrying out data archaeology and rescue activities. To this end, a workshop was organised in the Hellenic Center for Marine Research Crete (HCMR), Heraklion Crete, (8–9 June 2015) to assess possible mechanisms and guidelines to mobilise legacy biodiversity data. Workshop participants were data managers who actually implement data archaeology and rescue activities, as well as external experts in data mobilisation and data publication. In particular, current problems associated with manual extraction of occurrence data from legacy literature were reviewed, tools and mechanisms which could support a semi-automated process of data extraction were explored and the re-publication of the data, including incentives for data curators and scientists were reflected upon