Endocrine Abstracts

Rationale: Octreotide is known to shrink acromegalic tumours in vivo. However, the mechanism for this is unclear. To investigate the mechanism of shrinkage we used dynamic contrast enhanced MR imaging (DCE-MRI) to visualise the vascular components within the somatotroph adenomas.Subjects & Methods: Six patients with confirmed acromegaly comprising 4 microadenomas (all male) and 2 macroadenomas (1 male, 1 female) were recruited. All patients we...

CGRP, a potent vasodilator, is elevated in the intense periods during menopausal hot flushes and presently represents a candidate mediator of vasomotor symptoms. However due to the short half-life of CGRP, the local paracrine effects may be more important than systemic effects. These local paracrine effects may be mediated in conjunction with adipose tissue, due to close physical proximity with the vasculature; as well as altered oestrogen metabolism following menopause. There...

Obesity-mediated diabetes is associated with insulin resistance/hyperinsulinaemia and chronic sub-clinical inflammation. Recent studies have highlighted fatty liver(steatosis) as a risk factor for diabetes. Fatty liver disease (FLD) progresses through fatty liver, necro-inflammation (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, NASH) and fatwith fibrosis. In addition, hepatic steatosis per se can lead to hepatic insulin resistance/hyperin...

Pancreatic islet cell transplantation is proven to restore functional beta cell mass to achieve normoglycemia in diabetics, but is limited by low availability of human cadaveric donor tissue. A strategy to build capacity is to use stem cells (SCs), and induce their expansion and differentiation into functional islets in vitro. Islet cell neogenesis has been linked to transient and sequential expression of specific transcription factors (TFs) and the actions of endogenou...

Pregnancy is associated with increased circulating growth hormone (GH), which is thought to originate from the placenta in humans, but from the pituitary in rats. In this study we investigated the changes in somatotroph and lactotroph populations, and quantified spontaneous and secretagogue-induced GH and prolactin (PRL) secretion during pregnancy in rats.Using electron microscopy and immunogold labelling, somatotroph and lactotroph populations were quan...

Her-2/neu over-expression is associated with elevated tumorigenicity and enhanced metastatic potential. Recently a DNA motif containing the consensus binding site of PEA3, a member of the ets transcription factor family has been identified on the Her-2/neu promoter. Activation of the PEA3 response element has been proposed to be involved in the transcriptional squelching of Her-2/neu.Methods: Using RT-PCR we have determined PEA3 mRNA expression in human breast tissue and l...

Aim: To compare influence of transdermal versus peroral estrogen treatment on insulin sensitivity, lipid and hormonal levels in women affected with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).Patients and Methods: 17 women with PCOS, age 24.8 (4.2) years, BMI 24.15 (3.68) were randomly assigned either for peroral (8) or transdermal (9 patients) estrogens in conjunction with cyproteronacetate. In the early follicular phase of menstrual cycle before and then after 3 month of treatment ...

The estrogen receptor is encoded by two genes (ER-alpha and ER-beta). Both function as transcription factors to modulate expression of target genes. ER-alpha has been shown to interact with co-regulators to enhance or inhibit transcription in vitro. We hypothesised that the existence of these co-regulators contribute to the differing clinical response of patients to treatment with the anti-estrogen four hydroxytamoxifen (4-HOT). The aim of this project was to localise ER-alpha...

Introduction: Lutetium-177 Oxodotreotide (Lutathera) is a targeted molecular radiotherapy treatment for advanced, inoperable, progressive neuro-endocrine tumours. We present our experience of Lutathera therapy with particular focus on our experience implementing treatment as a day-case procedure, and assessment of adherence to treatment quality standards surrounding the administration.Aims: To assess safety of Lutathera as a day-case treatment.<p cla...

Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease is an inherited tumour syndrome, caused by a mutation in the VHL tumour suppressor gene encoding the VHL protein. Patients are prone to cysts and neuroendocrine tumours in the pancreas and other benign and malignant neoplasms. Pancreatic cysts occur in approximately 70% of VHL patients. We describe two cases of VHL disease with extensive multi-cystic changes affecting the whole pancreas, both patients had deletions of exon 2–3 of the VHL ge...