Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: The autoimmune polyglandular syndrome (APS) is a complex, heterogeneous condition in which autoimmune diseases (AIs) of endocrine and non-endocrine organs can occur. There are four subgroups. The majority of patients are categorized as having APS II or APS III. In APS II, patients have Addison’s disease (AD) and autoimmune thyroid diseases (AITDs) or type I. diabetes mellitus (T1DM), while in the APS III, AITDs are combined with other autoimmune illnesses ex...

Graves’ orbitopathy (GO) is a common complication of Graves’ disease (GD) which is often responding poorly to therapy. GO may develop before or together with, or during the course of GD. In an individual patient, the development of GO cannot be predicted. We assumed that orbital autoimmune activity is predictable using orbital 99mTc-labelled diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (99mTc-DTPA) SPECT. We aimed to determine whether any orbital autoimmune activity can be id...

Objective: Thyroid diseases have been shown to affect quality of life. A thyroid-specific patient-reported outcome (PRO) measuring quality of life, the ThyPRO, has recently been developed and validated using classical clinic- and psycho-metric methods. The purpose of the present study was to apply modern psychometrics to validate the measure as the extent of differential item functioning (DIF) according to sex, age, education and diagnosis, within the ThyPRO.<p class="abst...

Introduction: In the human, obesity is one of the leading health problems as declared by the World Health Organization. Obesity is frequently associated with diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipaemia, these acts together as metabolic syndrome (MS). The risk of cardiovascular diseases is 5 to 10 times higher in MS. Lack of daily exercise is a good reason to evolve MS. Several hormones take part in the development of MS. Leptin and insulin, which are produced by the adipose tissu...

Growth hormone deficient (GHD) children born small-for-gestational-age (SGA) receive the same hGH dose as the children born with appropriate weight/length for gestational age (AGA). There are very few data on their lower growth response to the usual GH replacement dose. The aim of this multi-centre retrospective study is to analyse the hGH dose dependency of GHD children with SGA.SGA was defined as a birth weight/length below – 2 SD for gestational ...

Introduction: The hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis setpoint and the glucocorticoid sensitivity in various tissues are at least partly genetically determined. The glucocorticoid receptor (GR) gene polymorphisms may have an impact on the development and/or the variability of clinical manifestations of endogenous hypercortisolism, however their role has not been investigated in patients with endogenous hypercortisolism.Methods: We investigated ...

Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) cells and immune cells can kill each other by death ligands. Death ligands induce apoptosis only in sensitive cells. The sensitivity to apoptosis is regulated in a complex and poorly understood manner. The aim of this study was to investigate the Fas ligand (FasL) and Tumor Necrosis Factor-Related Apoptosis Inducing Ligand (TRAIL) expression in PTC cells and tumor infiltrating immune cells. Twenty-six PTCs without and fifteen PTCs with cervical l...

Objective: During the development of a thyroid-specific quality of life (QoL) questionnaire, patients and clinicians rated the relative relevance of a list of possibly relevant QoL issues. In this study we compare the patient and clinician ratings.Methods: Fifteen thyroid experts and 80 thyroid outpatients (14 with non-toxic goitre, 12 nodular toxic goitre, 21 Graves’ disease, 17 thyroid associated ophthalmopathy (TAO) and 16 primary hypothyroidism)...

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) often results in long-term pituitary insufficiency. Regular endocrine screening of TBI patients is advised after the acute phase of the treatment period. We monitored pituitary functions in 32 TBI patients (28 men, 4 women). Endocrine tests were performed from 3 to 36 months after the brain injury. Thyroid functions, cortisol and ACTH levels, prolactin, sex hormone concentrations, GH/IGF1 axis and posterior pituitary function were evaluated. Additi...

It is generally believed that the signal transduction of AT1 angiotensin receptor (AT1R), the major receptor of angiotensin II, requires ligand binding and subsequent adoption of its active conformation. Activated AT1R induces a plethora of signaling pathways, in contrast to inactive AT1R, which was thought to be silent in terms of signaling. We hypothesized that unliganded, but phosphorylated AT1R may recruit β-arrestins, the key proteins of receptor desensitization, int...