Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Erectile dysfunction (ED) is common among elderly men and patients suffering from chronic diseases, the latter probably including also HIV infection. No studies, however, compared the prevalence of ED in HIV-infected and -uninfected individuals using the IIEF-15.Aim: To compare ED prevalence in young-middle aged men with and without HIV infection using the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-15) questionnaire.<p class="abstex...

Introduction: Thyroid FNAB is the gold standard to discriminate malignant from benign thyroid nodules. However, inadequate cytology ranges from 1 to 20% (up to 33.6%) in different settings and could depend on several factors, including the operator’s skills.Aim: To evaluate the effect of operator’s experience on US-FNAB diagnostic adequacy we reviewed 7029 US-FNABs performed from January 2006 to March 2009.Materials and M...

Introduction: There is no consensus about the usefulness of repeating the US-FNAB during the follow-up of nodules when a benign (Thy2) or indeterminate (Thy3) report is obtained at first US-FNAB.Aim of the study: To investigate the clinical value of repeating US-FNAB after a previous adequate Thy2 or Thy3 US-FNAB.Methods: We reviewed the US-FNABs performed from 2006 to 2009. All clinical data of the patients were collected and anal...

Introduction: Several studies in literature have shown that some features of thyroid nodules at US are associated with malignancy. However, previous studies were focused mainly on subjects affected by multinodular goiter (about 70%) rather than subjects with thyroid cancer (about 30%). Furthermore, the main limitation of previous studies was the lack of thyroidectomy in all subjects.Aim of the study: To evaluate the diagnostic value of US features in a s...

Introduction: At puberty, the raise of serum estradiol (E2) (after testosterone conversion) is needed to fuse ephiphyses and to complete bone maturation in boys. Owing to severe hypogonadism and very low circulating testosterone, adult men with congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (CHH) may present with unfused epiphyses and continuing linear growth if androgen deficiency is unrecognized and untreated. In order to establish the minimal amount of sex steroids nee...

Introduction: In type-1 neurofibromatosis (NF-1) there is an increased risk of endocrine tumors, especially pheochromocytomas, whereas thyroid carcinomas seem to be extremely rare, with few cases reported in literature.Subjects and methods: In order to investigate the frequency of hypercalcitoninaemia and medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) in patients with NF-1, we evaluated the thyroid gland morphology and function in 17 patients with NF-1 by i) neck US, ii...

Introduction: US-FNAB is the most cost/effective and accurate diagnostic procedure for the evaluation of thyroid nodules. In the clinic, the nursing assistance is not always available for the US-FNAB procedure in all endocrinological centers and its value remains to be established.Aim of the Study: To demonstrate the role of nursing assistance in US-FNAB procedures in improving the efficiency of this procedure.Methods: All clinical...

Introduction: Several data suggest that male hypogonadism occurs frequently in men with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) but underlying pathophysiological mechanism remains partially unknown. In order to investigate the short term effect of hyperglycaemic state on hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis we prospectively studied 18 men with T2DM younger than 55 years at the time of first diagnosis of T2DM. We compared men with HbA1c≥9.0% with men with HbA1c≤9.0...

Introduction: Familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) is a dominantly inherited disease characterized by colorectal adenomas, extracolonic gastrointestinal manifestations and extraintestinal diseases. Among them, differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) is considered very frequent with an approximately risk 160 times higher than in general population, and with a prevalence of the cribriform-morular variant. As this esteem comes from scattered data, we evaluated in a prospective contro...

Introduction: The efficacy of self monitoring of blood glucose (SBMG) on glycaemic control in non-insulin-treated (NIT) type-2-diabetes-mellitus (T2DM) is still controversial. In this paper we evaluated the influence of SMBG on glycaemic control in patients with T2DM with poor glycaemic control treated with oral antidiabetic agents.Methods: Thirty NIT-T2DM patients with poor glycaemic control and HbA1c>7% under treatment with oral hypoglycaemic agent...