Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Neuroendocrine cancers arise in the endocrine cells localized throughout the body. Most are found in the Gastroenteropancreatic (GEP) system pancreas, stomach, and small and large intestines. They are heterogenous in their etiology, morphology, and phenotypes. Due to late diagnosis and low prevalence, clinical specimens are limited for research. Thus, preclinical models are pivotal for the understanding of this disease. This study focuses on establishing a novel pa...

Background: The main challenge in the diagnosis of arginine vasopressin deficiency (AVP-deficiency, formerly known as central diabetes insipidus), is its distinction against primary polydipsia. Hypertonic saline stimulated copeptin showed a high diagnostic accuracy of 97% in distinguishing between AVP-deficiency and primary polydipsia (Fenske W, Refardt J, NEJM 2018), but comprises discomfort for patients and requires close sodium monitoring. Arginine stimulated copeptin showe...

Context: There is no data on mortality of acromegaly diagnosed in the elderly. Objective: To compare clinical characteristics, GH-related comorbidities, therapeutic approaches and mortality of patients diagnosed before or after 2010 and to assess overall mortality compared with the general Spanish population. Setting: Spanish tertiary care centers.Design, Patients, and Methods: Retrospective evaluation of 118...

Background: Steroid synthesis inhibitors, like metyrapone, osilodrostat, and ketoconazole are used as second-line treatment in all types of endogenous Cushing’s syndrome (CS). However, a direct comparison of these three drugs is missing. This study aimed to compare these drugs in the short-term therapy of CS.Design: Retrospective multicenter study involving 15 European centers.Methods: Patients with CS treated with metyrapone,...

Introduction and rationale: Cushing’s syndrome (CS) is a rare disease with hypercortisolism caused either by ACTH excess from a pituitary or non-pituitary tumor or by an ACTH-independent primary adrenal overproduction of cortisol. It is associated with significant comorbidities potentially lethal: hypertension, diabetes, coagulopathy, cardiovascular disease, infections, and osteoporotic fractures. It is usually managed by surgery and/or medical treatment with steroidogene...

Aims: Elevated levels of neurotensin (NT), a neurotransmitter and postprandial secreted intestinal hormone, are associated with an increased risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and breast cancer. Here we studied the regulation of circulating pro-NT (a stable NT precursor fragment) by weight loss and dietary interventions.Methods: DiOGenes is a pan-European controlled dietary intervention study in overweight adults who first lost body weight on an 8-...

Chimeric somatostatin (SST)/dopamine (DA) compounds, termed dopastatins, such as BIM-23A760, an agonist for SST (sst2 and ss5) and DA (D2) receptors, are emerging as promising new approaches to treat pituitary adenomas. However, their actions and mechanisms on the different types of pituitary tumours are still incompletely understood. Thus, the aim of this study was to analyse a set of key functional parameters (signaling pathways, hormonal expression and secretion, cell viabi...

Introduction: Endogenous Cushing’s syndrome (CS) is a rare, infradiagnosed and severe disease that carries high morbidity and mortality. Delays in treatment initiation reduce reversibility of symptoms and increase mortality rate. Current gold standard for screening, 24 h urinary free cortisol, has a low reproducibility and specificity, and sampling is complicated. Midnight salivary cortisol (MSVC) determination is considered an easy and cheap test. We intend to assess its...

Pituitary adenomas are heterogeneous, rare tumors, which hinders analysis of large numbers of cases with common approaches. To overcome this, a multicenter, clinical-basic strategy was proposed aimed at enhancing the tools to diagnose and manage pituitary tumors by combining clinical/pathological/molecular information. This initiative was developed by the Sociedad Andaluza de Endocrinología y Nutrición, and further endorsed by the Sociedad Española de Endocrinol...

Pegvisomant (peg) is an effective treatment for acromegaly.Aim: To investigate the prevalence of escape and the incidence of lipodystrophy with peg treatment.Methods: Multicenter retrospective study. Escape was defined as loss of control in patients previously controlled under a stable dose of peg, without any other treatment change. Lipodystrophy was defined as either hypertrophy or atrophy of subcutaneous tissue in areas of drug ...