Endocrine Abstracts

The spontaneous remission of Cushing disease (CD) might be a phase of cyclic disease, but could also be explained by an ACTH-microadenoma infarction or hemorrhage, with clinical pictures ranging from asymptomatic hypercortisolism normalization to dramatic hypocortisolism. We describe the case of a 23-years-old woman, referred for amenorrhea lasting for 5 months, overweight and acne. Physical examination showed mild hirsutism, acne, round face with a hint at rubeosis, abdominal...

Patients: Nineteen acromegalic patients (8 females, 21-69 years-old, with macroadenoma, microadenoma or no evidence of pituitary tumor in 15, 2, 2, respectively) resistant to first generation somatostatin analogs (FG-SA) at high doses and/or intolerant to pegvisomant were switched to pasireotide LAR (PasLAR). Eleven had persistent disease after neurosurgery and two had also undergone radiosurgery (12 and 24 months before starting PasLAR). Six complained of acromegalic headache...

Patients with Cushing’s syndrome (CS) commonly develop osteopenia–osteoporosis; the recovery of bone mass after remission of hypercortisolism is not well documented. The present study addresses this issue.Patients and methods: Twenty patients (6M, 14F, 2 post-menopausal), aged 15–64 years (median 36), 15 with Cushing’s disease, 2 with ectopic ACTH syndrome, 3 with ACTH-indipendent CS were studied. BMD (t and z scores) at...

Introduction: Basal calcitonin (bCT) and calcium-stimulated calcitonin (sCT) levels are useful in the management of Medullary Thyroid Cancer (MTC). Nowadays several bCT/sCT cut-offs have been proposed but univocally accepted values are still lacking. We identified gender-specific CT cut-offs in a series of patients who performed calcium gluconate test at our Centre.Methods: Our study includes a total of 35 patients (12 males and 23 females) with thyroid ...

Introduction: Paragangliomas are rare neuroendocrine tumors, that manifest as painless, slow-growing masses, becoming evident only when symptoms of catecholamine overproduction or mass effects emerge. Paragangliomas exhibit a broad spectrum of characteristics, existing as solitary or multiple entities, and may be sporadic or hereditary. These tumors can be either benign or malignant and have origin in the sympathetic or parasympathetic tissues. Paragangliomas are commonly foun...

Background: Among differentiated thyroid cancers, follicular thyroid carcinoma (FTC) is the second most prevalent, representing 10-15% of cases. Histopathological features, tumour size, multifocality, presence of lymphnode metastasis at diagnosis are the most impacting features affecting clinical outcome. Tumour microenvironment (TME) may have an important ancillary role for disease progression. We present two cases of FTC with biochemical and structural persistence of disease...

An increase in basal and Pentagastrin (Pg) stimulated calcitonin (CT) concentration is a specific feature of medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC). Routine basal CT measurement in nodular thyroid diseases is controversial. Pg stimulation is expected to increase the basal CT specificity in MTC screening, although false positive responses in patients without MTC have been reported.Aim: To report the diagnostic accuracy of Pg-stimulated CT in surgically treated...

The incidence of Neuroendocrine Neoplasm (NEN) and related carcinoid syndrome (CS) increased markedly in recent decades, and women appear to be more at risk than men. As per other tumors, gender may be relevant in influencing the clinical and prognostic characteristics. Unfortunately, there are no studies designed to answer this question in the literature. The present multicentric study was designed to evaluated gender differences, if any, in clinical presentation and outcomes...