Adrenal insufficiency may result from a wide variety of congenital or acquired disorders of hypothalamus, pituitary, or adrenal cortex. Destruction or dysfunction of the adrenal cortex is the cause of primary adrenal insufficiency, while secondary adrenal insufficiency is a result of pituitary or hypothalamic disease. Timely diagnosis and clinical management of adrenal insufficiency are critical to prevent morbidity and mortality. This review summarizes the etiologies, presentation, and diagnosis of adrenal insufficiency utilizing different dynamic hormone testing and describes current treatment recommendations and new therapies.

Background: Severe hypertriglyceridemia (HTG) as well as diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) are complications of type 1 diabetes (T1DM). HTG is an exceedingly rare complication in the pediatric population and herein we report a case of HTG at new-onset T1DM in DKA and discuss management and potential complications. Case presentation: An 11-year-old previously well patient with a history of fatigue and weight loss presented with: glucose >600 mg/dL, venous blood gas: pH 7.26, pCO₂ 20 mmHg, PO₂ 101 mmHg and base deficit 13 with triglyceride level 3573 mg/dL. An insulin drip was continued past criteria for discontinuation to facilitate lipoprotein lipase-based triglyceride metabolism. Conclusions: Lipemia secondary to severe HTG, though exceedingly rare, may exist in new onset T1DM with DKA. Complicating the diagnosis is the possibility of an analytical error from lipemia causing incongruence in diagnostic criteria. Clinicians should rely on clinical criteria for management and should consider HTG if laboratory data is inconsistent with the clinical picture.

Objectives: Various biases pertaining to stature account for a male sex predominance in growth hormone deficiency (GHD) cases diagnosed by endocrinology clinics. This manuscript will assess the sex distribution when biases are minimised.Methods: Retrospective chart review was conducted on patients diagnosed with GHD between 3 and 16 years of age. The sex distribution of cases was ascertained according to: (1) peak GH (pGH) by groups; based on growth hormone provocative testing, (2) pituitary gland imaging results, and (3) isolated GHD (IGHD) versus multiple pituitary hormone deficiencies (MPHD). The relative frequency of each sex was compared according to these subgroups with significance evaluated at α = .05 level.Results: Of the 5880 clinic referrals for short stature, there were 3709 boys (63%) and 2171 girls (37%). Of these, 20% of boys (n = 745) and 15.3% of girls (n = 332) underwent provocative testing for GHD. Of those tested, 39.2% of boys (n = 292) and 32.2% of girls (n = 107) were diagnosed with GHD, all p < .001. There was a male predominance in GHD cases based on pGH or GHD severity. Though not significant, girls were more likely than boys to have MPHD (p = .056), even across pGH groups (p = .06). Both boys and girls had a similar distribution of imaging abnormalities.Conclusion: Stratifying by sex, we found similar percentages of pituitary imaging abnormalities (including tumours) and the number of pituitary hormone deficiencies in boys and girls as the cause of GHD. For these classifications, we did not find the historically reported male sex predominance.