Dear Readers,

This issue of “Postępy Nauk Medycznych” being made available to you, dedicated to lecturers running postgraduate education in endocrinology within courses organized by the Department of Endocrinology of the Medical Centre of Postgraduate Education (CMKP), except for original papers, includes an extended part of review articles. Endocrinology is one of the most dynamically developing, as well as exceptionally interdisciplinary fields of medicine. Disturbance in the function of endocrine glands, connected with their hyperactivity or hypofunction, frequently leads not only to characteristic changes in appearance, but also to multi-organ complications. For this reason, endocrine and cardiovascular system disorders were selected as a leading subject of this issue. I hope that the interdisciplinary subject of this issue will be interesting for many physicians, also for those who are not endocrinologists.

In the department publishing original papers, a report of Wojciech Stefan Zgliczyński, M.Sc. from the School of Public Health of CMKP was published, which should be interesting for individuals, whom this issue was dedicated for – endocrinology teachers. Based on questionnaires filled out during courses for endocrinologists, the author tries to create a description of the profile of a physician specializing in this area. The information obtained regarding the professional and family situation, as well as opinions and values dominating in this group, which on one hand should contribute to adequate development of human resource management policy and education planning, while on the other hand it should contribute to becoming familiar with one’s own community.

The issue brought to you, begins with an etiology profile of one of the largest global collection of cases including adrenal incidentaloma and analysis of hypertension incidence in this group. In the material, which includes 2430 patients with incidentally detected adrenalomas, 90% were diagnosed as benign lesions, 7% – adrenocortical carcinoma, 0.5% with other malignant primary neoplasms of the adrenal glands, and 2.5% – metastases of neoplasms from other organs. Hypertension occurred in ca. 40%, but hypertension in only about 1/3 of them may be connected with lesions in the adrenal glands.

In the paper reporting studies on connections between abdominal and gynoid obesity as well as links between markers of metabolic disorders and androgen levels in serum of women with PCO, only a correlation between abdominal obesity and triglycerides level as well as between an insulin level and hypertension were demonstrated, but no relationship was established with concentration of androgens.

Publication evaluating clinical usability of libido disturbances in diagnosing late hypogonadism in male patients demonstrated that erection disorders are more specific symptoms of late hypogonadism in males than decreased libido, and it negatively correlates with total testosterone concentration.