Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Prolactinomas are the most common pituitary adenomas. Several authors hypothesized that there is an association between the development of pituitary adenomas and psychologically significant experiences, especially traumatic ones. This is particularly well-established for Cushing’s disease. When it comes to prolactinomas, it was suggested that prolactin acts as an alternative to cortisol in the response to stress, especially in patients who present with passi...

Introduction: Sheehan’s syndrome is a rare cause of hypopituitarism secondary to an intra or postpartum severe bleeding. Manifestations are most often caused by deficiencies of hormones of anterior pituitary; involvement of posterior pituitary is rarely described.Case report: We report a case of a 45 years old hypertensive, multipara, premenopausal woman, who underwent fertilization by oocyte donation, that resulted in twin pregnancy. Preterm vagina...

Nicotinamide nucleotide transhydrogenase (NNT) is an integral protein of the inner mitochondrial membrane and plays a major role in maintaining the redox balance by catalysing the trans-hydrogenation between NADH and NADP+ and proton translocation across the mitochondrial membrane.Genetic variants in NNT have recently been reported in patients with familial glucocorticoid deficiency (FGD), combined mineralocorticoid and glucocorticoid deficiency...

Introduction: The usefulness of acute octreotide suppression test (OST) in the selection of patients with acromegaly for chronic somatostatin analogues (SA) treatment is still controversial.Aim: To investigate the predictive value of OST for long-term responsiveness to long-acting SA.Materials and methods: Retrospective study of 25 drug-naive patients (13 males) with active acromegaly, subjected to an OST (hourly serum GH concentra...

Introduction: Cyclic Cushing syndrome (CCS) involves rhythmic fluctuations in ACTH secretion resulting in a cyclic variation of adrenal steroid production.Case presentation: A 37-year-old woman was referred to our Pituitary Clinic in 1999, for evaluation of galactorrhea and irregular menses that had started four months ago. She also complained of depression, facial hirsutism, alopecia and progressive obesity. Blood pressure was normal. Endocrinological e...

Introduction: There are limited data on the incidence and prevalence of pituitary adenomas (PA). Although classically considered rare, systematic assessments from autopsy and radiological studies have shown a prevalence of 17% in the general population.Objective: We describe the epidemiologic of PA in Braga, the third most populous district of Portugal (860 000 inhabitants, 2673 km2), over the last 20 years.Methods: We r...

Introduction: Conventional systemic therapies have limited role in metastasized neuroendocrine tumors (NET). Therefore an increasing role is attributed to 177Lu labeled somatostatin analogues (SA).Case: Man, 52 years, referred because of NET, diagnosed following liver biopsy for hepatic nodules (liver tissue infiltrated by NET, compatible with metastases). Endoscopic ultrasound revealed pancreatic nodular formation, 40×24 mm; 99</sup...

Introduction: Medical therapy of acromegaly is indicated in patients who failed to achieve remission after surgery, with contraindication or refusal for surgical therapy or following radiotherapy in order to bridge the interval until complete remission.Objective: Evaluate the medical therapy – somatostatin analogs (SSA), dopamine agonist (DAs) and GH receptor-antagonist (Pegvisomant) – in acromegalic patients followed from 1988–2011.<p...

Introduction: Several recent studies have reported an increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer during the last decades. The delineation between low-risk and high-risk tumor size is not well defined. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the primary tumor size of differentiated thyroid cancer and clinicopathologic data.Methods: We have analysed all records of all patients submitted to thyroidectomy at our hospital between 2...

Introduction: Recent data reveal that in the last 25 years it has been a 2.4 fold increase in thyroid cancer, with concomitant rise in thyroid microcarcinoma cases. The main purpose of this study was to analyse the surgical indications that leads to incidentally noted papillary microcarcinoma diagnosis.Methods: We analysed clinicopathologic data of nineteen cases of incidentally found papillary thyroid microcarcinoma, from 1244 thyroid surgeries realized...