Endocrine Abstracts

Pituitary adenomas constitute the third most common intracranial neoplasm. Adenoma cells either express no hormone (null cell adenoma) or hormones of different cell lineage. About 1% of pituitary adenomas shows a plurihormonal expression pattern, which may either be attributed to one cell lineage or rarely to different cell lineages. In addition, the development of separate pituitary adenomas may be observed in 0.5–1.5% of surgical specimens and in up to 10% of autopsy ca...

A 63-year-old woman came to our observation. She has been affected by a nodular goiter for 20 years. She was treated with 6 months short L-thyroxine therapy cycle (75 μg/day); the therapy was interrupted on her own initiative 3 months before we saw her. Symptoms: constriction, tachycardia. US: diffusely enlarged and hypoechogenic thyroid, a 5 cm well defined solid nodule on the right lobe. FNAB: poor colloid, numerous follicular cells, some of them showing ...

About 7% of pregnancies are complicated by diabetes, out of which 97.5% gestational diabetes (GMD), 2.5% pre-gestational diabetes. We investigated 29 women at their first pregnancy who had GMD medium risk factor in the absence of pre-existing thyroid pathologies. We divided them in two groups: the first 19 women (age 33.9 years) resulted affected by GMD (OGTT effected, according to Carpenter and C criteria), between pregnancy weeks 24–28; the second ten women (age 34.3 ye...

Hypoparathyroidism is characterised by parathyroid hormone (PTH) levels inadequate to maintain plasma calcium concentration within the normal range. Even if the conventional treatment with calcium supplements and active vitamin D analogues is usually able to maintain normocalcemia, episodic low plasma calcium, neuromuscular complaints, renal disease and gastric discomfort are not infrequent. 29 patients with post-surgical hypoparathyroidism were started on PTH 1–34 therap...

Introduction: Several cross-sectional studies evidence the association between hypovitaminosis D, obesity, insulin resistance (IR), and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) cohorts, although the role of obesity per se is still debatable. Increased leptin-to-adiponectin ratio (L/A) and low-grade chronic inflammation markers, both due to accumulation of dysfunctional adipocytes, have been recently reported in PCOS. Aim of our study was to investigate the relative roles of obe...

Somatostatin analogs (SSA) effectively control symptoms in neuroendocrine tumours (NET), besides showing antiproliferative activity. In progressive or metastatic NET, increasing SSA dose or shortening the dosing interval are common clinical practice, though empirical. Aim of this study is to evaluate efficacy and safety of high-dose SSA treatment in patients with progressive disease under standard SSA dose. Twenty-one patients (median age 56.8 years) with NET of different orig...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that repress protein production post-transcriptionally. MiRNAs play crucial roles in metabolism, endocrine cells development and in processes altered in T2D, such as insulin secretion. MiR-125b controls proliferation, apoptosis and differentiation of various cell types, although its role in β-cells remains unclear. Recent studies show an association between high levels of circulating miR-125b and hyperglycaemia (HbA1c) in predi...

Introduction: Pancreatic β-cells control glucose homeostasis by secreting insulin in response to high glucose. MiRNAs regulate β-cell function and contribute to β-cell failure in type 2 diabetes. MiR-184 regulates β-cell compensatory expansion during pregnancy and obesity and its expression is reduced by glucose through unknown mechanisms. AMPK is a suggested target of antidiabetic drugs and an important energy sensor. Its β-cell-selective inactivation...

Vitamin D has a role in the pathogenesis of thyroid autoimmunity.There is evidence in humans that serum levels of 1,25(OH) D3 were found to be significantly lower in patients with autoimmune thyroid diseases.We have evaluated all samples performed in the endocrine labs tested for vitamin D, AbTg, Ab-TPO and TSH from 2006 to 2015; 29216 samples for vitamin D and 41014 for TSH, AbTg and TPO were considered.We s...

Some authors observed lower thyroid antibodies titers (AbT) in children than in the adult population. The aim of this work was to consider the prevalence of positive results in AbT and elevated TSH levels. We have considered AbT and TSH measurements in a large population. We divided samples in 7 age groups 0–18, 18–20, 20–40, 40–50, 50–60, 60–70 and >70 years old. Cut-off positivity for AbTg and AbTPO was 50 and for TSH was 10 mUI/ml.<p cl...