Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Several studies have shown a reduced quality of life (QoL) in patients with Addison’s disease (AD). However, by now there are no data investigating the changes of QoL over a long-term course. Adrenal crises (AC) are frequent and potentially life-threatening complications in patients with AD. Since no reliable laboratory indicator can predict impending crises it is difficult to detect patients at increased risk. The purpose of this study was to test whether t...

Background: Work-up of thyroid nodules remains challenging. Fine needle aspiration (FNA) has been shown to be the most cost–effective way to select patients for surgery with sensitivities of 54–69% and specificities of 60–96% for the detection of malignant lesions. Ultrasound-based Realtime Elastography (RTE) enables the determination of tissue elasticity and has shown promising results for the differentiation of thyroid nodules. A meta-analysis was performed to...

Background: Adrenal masses can be detected by ultrasound with high sensitivity and specificity. However, a differentiation between benign and malignant adrenal masses is not possible with conventional ultrasound. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) is a established method for the characterization of focal liver lesions. A first pilot study (n=35) analyzing the dynamics of contrast-enhancement during CEUS reported a high sensitivity for differentiation of benign and mali...

Introduction: Work-up of thyroid nodules remains challenging. Thyroid imaging reporting and data system (TIRADS) has been developed to improve patient management and cost-effectiveness by avoiding unnecessary fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) in patients with thyroid nodules. However, since its publication in JCEM (2009) its clinical use is still very limited and its practicability in clinical practice is questioned. Realtime-elastography (RTE) enables the determination of ...