Endocrine Abstracts

Hyperthyroid patients show an impaired response or even resistance to digoxin treatment.Objectives: 1. Are there any differences in the pharmacokinetics of a single oral dose of digoxin between hyperthyroid and euthyroid patients? 2. Does simultaneous administration of digoxin and methimazole or digoxin and acebutolol affect the pharmacokinetics of a single oral dose of dogoxin? 3. Does methimazole-induced euthyroidism change the pharmacokinetics of a si...

Background: Aggressive prolactinomas are rare neoplasms that are characterized by rapid growth and usually large tumor size, invasion of adjacent structures, an aggressive clinical behavior with little response to conventional treatment, high rate of recurrence, and elevated morbidity and mortality.Case Report: 48-year-old woman diagnosed with life-threatening aggressive prolactinoma was referred to us for evaluation of complementary therapy after therap...

Introduction: Hypoparathyroidism is characterized by hypocalcemia and low or inappropriately normal levels of PTH. The most common cause of hypoparathyroidism is iatrogenic due to anterior neck surgery. In recent years it was documented that vitamin D insufficiency is widespread.Aim: To investigate the cause of hypocalcemia in thyroidectomized patients with PTH within the reference range.Methods: Retrospective review of clinical re...

Introduction: Treatment of hyperthyroidism in older adults is crucial to reduce its morbidity and mortality. Radioactive iodine has been widely used in this age group due to its efficacy, safety and cost-effectiveness.Aim: To determine the efficacy of 131I for treatment of hyperthyroidism in the elderly.Methods: Retrospective study of 86 hyperthyroid patients aged ≥65 years who performed radioiodine therapy. We eva...

Introduction: Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors (TKIs) are approved for the treatment of several cancers and can induce hypothyroidism by unclarified mechanisms.Objectives: To assess the prevalence of hypothyroidism in patients treated with TKIs.Methods: Retrospective review of clinical records of patients treated with TKIs in our institution between 2003 and 2009. We evaluated parameters such as sex, oncologic pathology, TKI used, TSH an...

Introduction: Procalcitonin (PCT) is currently used as a sepsis marker. Studies have shown that this prohormone is elevated in patients with medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) and, additionally, that its assay could have less limitation than calcitonin (CT).Objective: To evaluate the concordance between the values of CT and PCT.Methods: CT, PCT and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) were measured in a total of 57 subjects. CEA and CT we...

Malignant insulinoma is an extremely uncommon tumor (5–10% of insulinomas). It is accompanied by severe hypoglycemia and a short life expectancy (survival at 10 years <10%). Its clinical management is complex and constitutes a real therapeutic challenge. So far, the experience of radionuclide treatment in these tumors is scarce. We report the case of a 51-year-old woman diagnosed with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (pNET) in January 2013. Pre-surgical imaging study b...

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: Treatment using radioactive iodine (RAI) is used in several thyroid diseases, including differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC). The most frequent adverse effects include acute gastrointestinal symptoms, sialadenitis, xerostomia, cervical pain, and cervical swelling. Chronic symptoms such as obstruction of the salivary ducts, pulmonary fibrosis or other primary malignant diseases are also described. A single case of change in tongue pigmentation / lingua villosa n...

Aim: Radioiodine activities for the treatment of Graves’ disease hyperthyroidism are still subject to discussion, as is the use of a fixed approach over a dosimetric one. We aimed to evaluate our success rate using a personalized dosimetric approach: instead of the “(MBq I-131×g gland mass×100)/(percentage uptake at 24 h)” activity calculation, we further adjusted for factors such as gender, age, diagnosis, 2 h and 4 h radioiodine uptake, previous medi...