Endocrine Abstracts

Thyroid cancer (TC) is the most common endocrine malignancy, with an increasing number of diagnosis in the last decades. Of all TC histotypes, the poorly differentiated and anaplastic TCs (PDTC and ATC) have a very poor prognosis because of their invasiveness and metastatic behavior, as well as their insensitivity to radioactive-iodine treatment. In the last years, the stem-cell model has been proposed to further explain TC carcinogenesis. According to this model, only a subse...

Thyroid cancer (TC) is the most common endocrine tumor and its incidence has increased faster than in any other malignancy. Although TCs are usually well differentiated, disease recurrence or persistence is high, because of local and distant metastasis and therapeutic resistance. As in other cancer types, despite the promising results obtained in pre-clinical studies, the efficacy of Targeted Therapy is highly variable and therapy resistance is not uncommon. This may be due to...

Premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) is a disorder in which amenorrhea, associated to elevated levels of gonadotropins, occurs before the age of 40 years.The proband, a 36-year-old woman, was born at term after an uneventful pregnancy and delivery from healthy non-consanguineous parents. Growth and mental developmental milestones were normal. At the age of 12 years she presented menarche followed by regular menses, she had no miscarriage and had a succe...

Thyroid cancer (TC) is the most common Endocrine malignancy. Nowadays Undifferentiated Thyroid Cancers (UTCs) are still a lethal disease, mostly because of the lack of effective therapeutic options. The insurgence of therapy resistance and disease relapse is believed to be caused by a subpopulation of cancer cells with a stem-like phenotype and specific tumor-initiating abilities, the so called Tumor-Initiating Cells (TICs). Several markers have been identified and described o...

Background: Vandetanib and Cabozantinib are the only two multitarget tyrosine kinase inhibitors approved for the management of metastatic and progressive medullary thyroid cancer. (MTC) Despite their efficacy in terms of progression free survival prolongation and overall response rate, the drug-related toxicity is still a clinical problem, impairing patient’s quality of life and the compliance to the treatment. We retrospectively evaluate the adverse events (AEs) occurred...

Background: Cervical lymph node metastases at histology are common findings in differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC); however, their impact on clinical outcome is debated.Material and method: 1332 DTC patients, performed the first 131 I treatment between January 2010 and September 2012 and were divided into 2 groups: absence (Nx/N0) or presence (N1) of lymph node metastases at histology. The latter group was further split in central compartment ...

Subacute thyroiditis (SAT) is an inflammation of the thyroid gland characterized by varying degrees of severity regarding thyrotoxicosis, inflammation and the incidence of hypothyroidism. The present study aims to identify whether the severity of SAT depends on the causative agent involved and to identify what is the optimal therapy. To this purpose we retrospectively evaluated 402 patients referred to of the University Hospital of Pisa because of to a SAT from January 2011 to...

PD-1/PD-L1 pathway is a key regulator in T-cell activation and tolerance. Nivolumab, pembrolizumab (a PD-1 inhibitors) and atezolizumab (a PD-L1 inhibitor) are monoclonal antibodies approved for treatment of advanced cancers. Autoimmune thyroid diseases are the most common immune-related adverse effects (IrAEs) occurring after anti-PD-1 or anti-PD-L1 therapy, whereas autoimmune hypophysitis is described more frequently in patients treated with anti-CTLA-4. IrAEs can be isolate...

Context: Monoclonal antibodies to Immune Check Point inhibitors (ICPis) are powerful anti-cancer drugs. They trigger the immune system against cancer cells, blocking inhibitory signals of T-Cells. However, ICPi therapy can also stimulate autoimmune reactions, inducing the so-called immune-related adverse events (irAEs). Endocrinopathies are common iRAEs and thyroid disfunction is the most common endocrinopathy during ICP therapy. We report three cases of thyroid disfunction du...

Thyroid cancer (TC) is the most common endocrine tumor and its incidence has increased faster than in any other malignancy. Although TCs are usually well differentiated, disease recurrence or persistence is high, because of local and distant metastasis and therapeutic resistance. Among the different genetic alterations, BRAFV600E is the most frequent one. Several studies tried to establish a correlation between BRAFV600E and patients outcome, with controversial results. Nevert...