Endocrine Abstracts

Overt hypercortisolism causes reduction in bone mass and density. The effects of subclinical Cushing’s syndrome (SCS) on bone markers and structure are still debated. We therefore studied 56 patients with adrenal incidentaloma: group A=35 (20 F 15 M, age 43–79, mean 64.6±1.5; BMI 29.9±0.9 kg/m2) without evidence of hypercortisolism, and group B=21 (10 F 11 M, age 51–76, mean 63.4±1.9, BMI 28.0±1.2 kg/m2) with SCS (i.e. w...

Somatostatin (SRIH) inhibits cell proliferation by interacting with five distinct SRIH receptor subtypes (SSTR) by several pathways in many tissues. We previously demonstrated that SRIH, by activating SHP-1, inhibits cell proliferation of the human Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma (MTC) cell line, TT, which expresses all SSTR. However, the effects of SRIH on cell cycle proteins have not been investigated, so far. We therefore investigated the effects of SRIH and of a selective SSTR...

Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) is a malignant tumour deriving from parafollicular C cells, with a highly chemoresistant phenotype. Failure of medical therapy has been ascribed, at least in part, to multi drug resistance (MDR1) gene over-expression. MDR1 encodes for a transmembrane glycoprotein, P-gp, which hampers intracellular accumulation of cytotoxic drugs. It has been demonstrated that P-gp expression and function depend on cyclo-oxygenase 2 (COX-2) expression, which is...