Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: An increased Body Mass Index (BMI) has been associated with higher prevalence of many cancers, including differentiated thyroid cancer. However, no data have been reported about potential impact of BMI on aggressiveness of presentation and clinical outcome of medullary thyroid cancer (MTC).Aim: To evaluate the potential influence of BMI on clinical presentation and outcome of MTC.Methods: We reviewed anthropometric an...

Background: Cushing’s syndrome (CS) is caused by endogenous cortisol excess and is associated with significant morbidity. Twenty-four-hour urinary cortisol is one of the most useful tools to diagnose CS although it has limitations, especially in “mild” and “subclinical” forms of cortisol excess. We hypothesized that given the diurnal rhythm of physiological cortisol secretion, night-time urinary glucocorticoid excretion should be lower than day-time ex...

Neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) can be sporadic or can arise in complex hereditary endocrine disorders such as multiple endocrine neoplasias (MENs), familial paragangliomatosis (FPGLs), neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), von Hippel–Lindau disease (VHL), tuberous sclerosis (TSC). It has been estimated that hereditary NET occurrence varies with site of origin of the tumour, representing 5–30% of all cases of NET. These rates seems to be an underestimation and novel mutation...

Introduction: Sestamibi (SM) and ultrasound (US) are routinely used for preoperative localisation of abnormal parathyroids in patients with hyperparathyroidism. Minimally invasive parathyroidectomy (MIP) is recommended if localisation is concordant, otherwise neck exploration is the method of choice.Aim: To assess whether introduction of intraoperative parathormone (IOPTH) monitoring allows us to perform MIP successfully in patients with non concordant f...

Introduction: Acne is a common skin disease that occasionally can be influenced by endocrine abnormalities. In females, a clear relationship has been highlight between acne onset and peripheral insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia, whereas few data are available in male. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between acne and insulin resistance as well as other metabolic impairment in male subjects with acne.Methods/design: Twenty-t...

Introduction: The surgical approach is the first line treatment for patients with an indeterminate nodule, both without and with nuclear atypia (TIR3A and TIR3B, respectively, as defined by Italian Consensus for thyroid cytology). However, there are no prospective studies about the feasibility of active surveillance in patients with indeterminate thyroid nodules.Methods: Eighty-six consecutive patients who decided to undergo active surveillance for at le...

Introduction: The association between thyroid cancer and thyrotoxicosis is rare and, in particular, autonomous hyperfunctioning metastasis of differentiated thyroid cancer (TC) are seldom described, with a prevalence of 0.71%. Althought most hyperfunctioning metastasis are derived from follicular thyroid cancer (FTC), metastasis from papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) have been also reported. Bone metastasis account for the majority of cases. Hyperfunctioning TC metastasis have be...

Introduction: Despite its neuroendocrine origin, only recently an international study group proposed a dedicated grading system (IMTCGS) for medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC). IMTCGS is an independent and powerful tool able to predict disease specific survival (DSS) as well as distant metastasis-free (DMFS) and locoregional recurrence-free survivals (LRFS), regardless of other risk factors, including staging.Objectives: To evaluate the performance of IMT...

Background: Distant metastases at diagnosis is the worst prognostic factor for disease specific survival (DSS) in sporadic medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC). Also, lymph node metastases are negative prognostic factors both for DSS and recurrence free survival (RFS). The question whether central (N1a) and latero-cervical compartment lymph nodes metastasis (N1b), separately evaluated, can have a different impact on DSS and RFS remains to be clarified.Patie...

Introduction: RET gene is responsible for various human cancers and is mutated and hyperactivated in nearly 100% of familial (germline mutation) and in about 60% of sporadic (somatic mutation) MTC cases. Moreover, RET gene play a role in several physiologic and pathologic conditions. Very recently, the hyperfunction of RET was found to be a key process in weight loss. The hypothesis is that in a peculiar population in which RET gene is mutated and constitutively activated from...