Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Pituitary apoplexy is a rare and potentially life-threatening disorder defined by hemorrhage or infarction of the pituitary gland. Occasionally, it may be the first manifestation of an underlying adenoma.Case report: We present a case of a 70-year-old male, who was admitted in our clinic for an incidentally discovered pituitary macroadenoma accompanied by severe left hemicrania, otalgia and left eyelid ptosis.Medical ...

Introduction: Multiple factors have been incriminated in growth retardation in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), such as metabolic acidosis, anemia, vitamin D deficiency with secondary hyperparathyroidism, under-nutrition, renal bone disease. The disease compromises vertical growth with up to one-third children having severe growth delay (below the third percentile for height). Optimal care and nutritional therapy alone, can’t help the children with CKD reach t...

Introduction: Iron deficiency contributes to stabilization of HIF1α and upregulation of genes that stimulate angiogenesis in diseases associated with oxidative stress. The authors’ interest is centered on evaluation of the relation between iron status and angiogenesis (VEGF-A, sVEGFR) in patients with melanoma.Methods: The study included 128 patients with melanoma before surgical removal of the tumor. We determined ferritin (immunoturbidimetric...

Background: Phosphoprotein enriched in diabetes (PED) is a scaffold protein widely produced in different tissues; it is involved in multiple cellular functions, including insulin-regulated glucose transport. Previous findings showed that in individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2D) the PED gene is overexpressed in skeletal muscle (SM) and adipose tissue (AT), both target tissues for insulin activity. Our group has recently evidenced that PED protein is also expressed in periphera...

Introduction: Malignant melanoma is a challenging illness for researchers due to unknown hormonal disorders involved in promoting/developing this disease. Some authors accept nowadays, that prolactin is involved in extrapituitary carcinogenesis.The authors aimed to study the status of prolactin in patients with melanocytic lesions and the impact of surgical removal on prolactinemia.Method: The study included 128 adults with melanom...

Prokineticins (Prok1 and Prok2) are chemokine-like peptides, which regulate through two G-protein-coupled receptors, ProkR1 and ProkR2, different physiological and pathological functions. Prok1 plays a significant role in tumour development and progression in several tissues. There are few data on the involvement of Prok1 and ProkR1 in testicular cancer. Aim of this study was to evaluate the expression of Prok1 and ProkR1 in a series of testicular germ cell tumours (GCT).<...

Nesidioblastosis is defined as a diffuse proliferation of primitive pancreatic islet cells budding from ductal epithelium. This condition can cause hypoglycaemia in infants as a result of mutations in the sulfonylurea receptor or in the anatomically linked potassium channel. In adults, this disease occurs independently from these genetic mutations.Case report: A 41-year-old male was referred to our center via emergency room with suspicion of an insulinom...

The aim of our study was to assess the relation between common carotid intima-media thickness, a marker of subclinical atherosclerosis and other metabolic risk factors, in a group of obese patients.Patients and methods: Of 142 obese patients (47 male, 95 female, mean age 39.74±11.41 years, and mean BMI 46.88±8.85 kg/m2) were clinically and biologically evaluated. BMI and waist circumference were measured and a complete patient histor...

We present the case of a 51 years old woman, nonsmoker, without relevant past medical history, who presented with acute psychotic state starting the third day of treatment with prednisone 30 mg indicated for allergy. She had also arterial hypertension and a significant and progressive loss of proximal muscle strength in her legs. The initial evaluation showed hyperglycemia, metabolic alkalosis and severe hypokalemia. Basal plasma cortisol was high (>90 μg/dl) and did ...

Introduction: The presence of truncated variant of somatostatin receptors (SSTR) has been demonstrated in pituitary tumours. These variants seems act as dominant negative of SSTR and induce the resistance to SST analogue (SSTA) treatment. A variant of SSTR5, sst5TMD4, has been found to disrupt SST signalling in breast cancer cells. In present study, we assayed the expression of sst5TMD4 in two non-transformed epithelial prostate cell lines (EPC): EPN, derived from a normal sur...