Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Although surgery is considered the first-line treatment for patients with endogenous Cushing’s syndrome (CS), medical therapy is often required to control severe hypercortisolism. Metyrapone and osilodrostat are inhibitors of 11β-hydroxylase that have not been directly compared yet.Methods: Retrospective analysis of patients with adrenocorticotropin (ACTH)-dependent and ACTH-independent CS treated with metyrapone or osilodrostat (as...

BackgroundAgouti related peptide (AgRP) is a neuropeptide, produced by the hypothalamus and by the adrenal glands. AgRP is an antagonist of proopiomelanocortin (POMC) and its principal role is to stimulate appetite. Although current evidences suggest that AgRP levels are influenced by glucocorticoids, it is still not clear, whether they depend on adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) or cortisol. One of the aims of this study was to address this issue. Furt...

Introduction: Adrenocortical tumors consist in frequent benign adenomas (ACA) and rare highly malignant carcinomas (ACC). BIRC7/livin gene, a member of the inhibitors of apoptosis family, plays an important role in tumorigenesis in a variety of malignancies. Different studies demonstrated that BIRC7 overexpression represent a risk factor for cancer development and progression. The aim of our study was to evaluate the expression of BIRC7 in normal adrenals and adrenocortical tu...

Introduction: Sporadic neuroendocrine neoplasms (NEN) occur rarely in young-adult (YA) patients, with an estimated incidence is about 2.8 cases per million, and data specific to their epidemiology are limited. The aim of our study was to better characterize the natural history, prognosis and management of NEN in YA patients (≤ 35 years old) compared to adult-elderly (AE; >35 years old).Methods: A retrospective observational study including 204 ...

Introduction: Adrenocortical tumors (ACTs) are usually divided in adenoma (ACA) or carcinoma (ACC) according to histopathologic methods. Some lesions are occasionally difficult to classify according to these criteria. We studied the use of some immunohistochemical markers to recognise the difference between malignant and benign tumors.Materials and methods: We studied 12 patients affected by ACC and 10 by ACA. Clinical evaluation and hormone analysis wer...

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a very severe endocrine malignancy with poor prognosis. While cancer immunotherapies have revolutionized the treatment of several cancer entities, the results of initial studies of different immune checkpoint inhibitors in ACC were heterogeneous and clinically substantial responses were observed only in a subset of patients. Expression of immune checkpoint molecules - programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) and its ligand PD-L1 - has been shown to pred...

Objective: Glucocorticoid excess impairs immune function, thereby predisposing patients with endogenous Cushing’s syndrome (CS) to infections. However, it is still not clear whether there is a CS-subtype specific pattern in white blood cell (WBC) and WBC differential (WBCD) count.Methods: Retrospective monocentric cohort study in patients with either overt endogenous CS or adrenal adenomas with autonomous cortisol secretion (ACS), with WBC and WBCD ...

Background: Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare aggressive cancer with limited treatment options for advanced stages. By targeted RNA expression screening, we identified polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1) as one of most overexpressed genes, thus representing a potential drug target for ACC. PLK1 inhibitors are under evaluation in clinical trials for other solid cancers and seem to be more effective in TP53 mutated tumours. The aim of the study was to evaluate PLK1 protein levels i...

Background and aim: Neuroendocrine neoplasms (NEN) show increasing incidence and varying biology, but epidemiological and clinical data for other than gastroenteropancreatic (GEP) and thoracic NEN are scattered. Furthermore the best therapeutic approach in NEN arising in uncommon sites is still debated. Aim of this study is to assess the epidemiological and clinical features of NEN arising in uncommon sites in a monocentric series of a referral center.Ma...

Ad Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is an aggressive tumour and treatment remains unsatisfactory in advanced disease. Activation of epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) is considered causative for metastatic spread in a variety of human cancers. Accordingly, new drugs were developed specifically targeting EMT with a focus on hepatocyte growth factor (HGF)/HGF receptor (c-MET) and fibroblast growth factor (FGF)/FGF receptor (FGFR) signalling.We here a...