Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Pasireotide reduced UFC levels in 22 of 29 patients with Cushing’s disease after 15 days’ treatment (Boscaro et al. JCEM 2009). Of these 22 patients, 5 achieved normalized UFC (UFC-responders) and 17 had reduced but not normalized UFC (UFC-reducers). Results of an extension phase to this study are presented.Methods: Patients with de novo or persistent/recurrent Cushing’s disease received pasireotide 600 μg ...

Over the last decade 824 pituitary tumours have been removed in our centre. Of these, 114 (13.8%) were corticotroph adenomas. We present four unusual cases of corticotroph adenoma showing transition from Cushing’s disease to a hormonally inactive adenoma (case 1 and 2) or vice versa (case 3 and 4).Case 1: A 51-year-old man was admitted with a 2-year history of weight gain, arterial hypertension and chiasmatic syndrome. Cushing’s disease (CD) du...

Context: Glucocorticoids are known to decrease protein synthesis and impair membrane excitability of muscle fibres. However, their short-term effects on muscle structure and function of healthy subjects remain poorly understood.Objective: To investigate whether steroid administration could decrease the circulating levels of muscle proteins and modify myoelectric indexes of sarcolemmal excitability and fatigability.Design: Single-bl...

Objectives: The long-term outcome of bariatric surgery on renal function in the morbidly obese renal transplant recipient is still unknown. We describe three cases of morbidly obese renal transplant recipients who have subsequently undergone bariatric surgery.Patient 1: A 44-year-old man (BMI 42.2 kg/m2) had received a renal transplant for chronic renal disease secondary to childhood reflux nephropathy. Laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass re...

Objectives: The long-term outcome of bariatric surgery on renal function in the morbidly obese renal transplant recipient is still unknown. We describe three cases of morbidly obese renal transplant recipients who have subsequently undergone bariatric surgery.Patient 1: A 44-year-old man (BMI 42.2 kg/m2) had received a renal transplant for chronic renal disease secondary to childhood reflux nephropathy. Laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass re...

Hypoxia inducible factor-1alpha (HIF-1α) is a transcription factor regulating expression of many genes related to oxygen homeostasis in response to hypoxic stress. RSUME is a sumoylation enhancer, which was recently cloned from a pituitary cell line with an increased tumorigenic and angiogenic potential. It has been shown that RSMUE is induced by hypoxia and enhances the sumoylation of HIF-1α. Although many studies demonstrated that the level of HIF-1α is remark...

Objective: The corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) test does not reliably distinguish between Cushing’s disease (CD) and normality or pseudo-Cushing state (PC). In this study we assessed whether the application of novel criteria could enhance its diagnostic performance.Design: Retrospective study.Patients: Fifty-one subjects with CD, 26 with PC and 31 control subjects (CT).Measurements: All subjects un...

The aim of the present study was to measure free thiols content, Na+/K+-ATPase, Ca2+-ATPase activities in human spermatozoa of asthenozoospermic patients and normospermic donors, and evaluate any influence on kinetic sperm features, as well as correlation with peroxynitrite. In fact, membrane integrity and its composition are the basic characteristics of the sperm membrane, thus, it is evident that its composition is an important factor for mem...

Background: The development of a vascular supply is a critical factor in the growth and metastatic spread of malignant tumors. The recognition of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) pathway as a key regulator of angiogenesis has led to a considerable efforts to exploit its potential for therapy in oncology. Endocrine gland-derived (EG-VEGF) has been recently identified as an endothelial cell mitogen, predominantly expressed in steroidogenic tissues; it represents a n...

Glucocorticoid receptor (GR) gene polymorphisms have been associated with interindividual variations in glucocorticoid sensitivity in healthy individuals.Aim: Aim of this study was to investigate whether there was an association with sensitivity to glucocorticoids and bone mineral density in HPA axis disorders.Methods: We analyzed 3 polymorphisms of the GR gene (Bcl1, N363S, ER22/23EK) in 185 subjects: 52 patients with Cushing&#146...