Endocrine Abstracts

Purpose: To validate a prognostic stratification system of overall survival (OS) in stage IV pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (pNETs) naïve of therapy by analyzing 1) prognostic parameters at the time of stage IV diagnosis; 2) the role of spontaneous tumor slope.Patients and Methods: Multicenter retrospective study including consecutive patients diagnosed with stage IV pNET from January 1997 to March 2014. Inclusion criteria were: 1. pNET w...

Several co-morbidities are associated with the HIV infection involving also the endocrine-metabolic system. Consistently, the recent development of HAART therapy ruled out a significant improvement both in the prognosis and life expectancy of HIV-infected patients, but disclosed also new serious drug-related toxicity. Of these, the lipodystrophy syndrome is the most frequent, occurring in up to 83% of HIV-infected patients under HAART. HIV-related lipodystrophy is associated w...

Nitric oxide (NO) is the main final effector for penile erection achievement and maintenance in men and it constitutes a crucial target for therapeutical strategies addressed to the treatment of erectile dysfunction. The role of sex steroids penile NO pathway is still unclear, but some data suggest a positive role of androgens. In order to study the effects of sildenafil on human sleep-related erections according to the state of androgenization, we recently evaluated the effec...

Pancreatic NETs (PanNETs) are characterized by recurrent molecular alterations, including genetic inactivation of MEN1, ATRX/DAXX, and activation of the PI3K/mTOR pathway. The International Cancer Genome Consortium effort on PanNETs provide a first snapshot of how heterogeneous is the combination of genetic alterations that drive this tumour type, yet converging into four pathways whose alteration has been enriched by newly discovered mechanisms. Whole-genome sequencing of 102...

Introduction: We evaluated glycemia and the iron status in patients with NT-SCD and 6 patients with TD- SCD by measuring serum ferritin level (SF), liver iron content (LIC), alanine transferase (ALT) and fasting blood glucose (FBG) over 5 years of follow up.Results: At the initial assessment, 16 adults with (age: 33±14 years), and six of TD-SCD (n=6, age =25±10 years) were studied. 6/16 of NT-SCD had SF > 500 μg/l, and 5/16 ha...

Background and aim: KS has been classically described as characterized by hyperestrogenism and elevated serum E2 together with increased gonadotropins and low-to-normal serum testosterone (T). In literature, data on increased serum E2 are not solid. The aim of this study is to meta-analyse data from studies evaluating serum E2 in both KS and healthy subjects (HS) in order to verify if E2 is increased in KS.Meth...

A 22-year-old female complaining about irregular menses associated to a slight increase of serum PRL and the recent onset of headache, nausea, dizziness, photophobia, occasional diplopia, visual impairment, anxiety and panic attacks was evaluated for the possible presence of a cerebral mass with intracranial hypertension. Fundoscopic examination and visual field were both normal. There was an empty sella with a flattened pituitary gland along the floor of the pituitary fossa a...

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).<...

Aim: Aim of the study was the evaluation of the effects of chemotherapy on insulin secretion and insulin sensitivity in patients affected by acute leukaemia.Materials and methods: Thirty-two non-diabetic patients (17 male, 15 female; age 51.1±17.4, range 16–76 years; BMI=25.1±3.7, range 18.4–32.8 kg/m2; 6=18% with a family history of diabetes mellitus) affected by acute leukaemia, 4 LLA (12.5%) and 28 LMA (87.5%), have been...

Serous ovarian cancer is one of the leading causes of death among all gynaecological malignancies. Even though a hereditary component has been suggested, most ovarian carcinomas are sporadic and markers for a diagnosis at an early stage of the disease are still to be identified. Since gonadotropins may stimulate the growth of certain cancer cells, we aim to identify tumour markers linked to gonadotropin receptor-mediated pathways. Through an in silico and ex vivo<...