Endocrine Abstracts

Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2 (MEN 2) is characterized by the presence of medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) and other benign pathologies. RET mutations are responsible of this disease and their screening is a very sensitive tool for the identification of gene carriers (GC).Aim of this study was to verify the relevance of the basal and pentagastrin (Pg) stimulated serum calcitonin (CT) in the decision to perform TT in GC. We reviewed data of 65 GC foun...

Introduction: Surgery is the established first line treatment in adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC). For benign adrenal tumours, laparoscopic adrenalectomy (LA) has become the treatment of choice. However, the role of LA in ACC remains highly controversial. Data from the German ACC Registry were used to evaluate the technical feasibility of LA in ACC and to compare the long-term outcome after LA with the results of open adrenalectomy (OA).Methods: Out of 521...

Subject: Treatment options for adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) are still unsatisfactory. We could recently demonstrate that several patients with ACC exhibit a high and specific uptake of 123I-Iodometomidate (123I-IMTO). Therefore, we investigated if 131I-IMTO holds potential for radiotherapy in ACC.Methods: Dosimetry with 40 MBq I-131-IMTO was performed over 5 days in 7 patients and calculated activities were administered on a compassionate use basis in ...

Introduction: MicroRNAs (miRNA) are non-coding RNA molecules involved in the posttranscriptional regulation of gene expression. MiRNAs bind mRNA molecules at their 3′ untranslated regions and induce translational repression or target degradation. MiRNAs play important roles in the pathogenesis of several neoplasms. There are no reports, however, on the possible involvement of miRNAs in the pathogenesis of adrenocortical tumors.Objective: To study s...

Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) have been demonstrated to impact tumorigenesis in a variety of tumors. As for the adrenal cortex, quantitative real time PCR analyses revealed down-regulation of various BMPs (e.g. BMP2, BMP5) in tissue samples from adrenocortical carcinoma and adrenocortical tumor cell lines in comparison to normal adrenal glands. Other members, by contrast, as seen for BMP6 remained unaltered. Integrity of BMP dependent pathways in the investigated cell lin...

The commonly expressed multifunctional protein and protooncogene β-catenin displays important functions in cell–cell adhesion and in the Wnt signaling pathway. Transforming activity of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway is thought to be involved in the development of a variety of human cancers and many β-catenin target genes have been shown to play critical functions in tumors. Therefore, the aim of this project was to determine the expression levels and cellular di...