Endocrine Abstracts

Carcinoid cardiac disease is a rare cause of intrinsic right heart valve disease with significant impact on mortality. We present the case of a young male patient (38 yrs old) complaining in the last 5 yrs of abdominal pain associated with flushing of the face that progressively worsened (up to 15 episodes/day) accompanied by diarrhoea and, in the last 2 months, by night sweats, distension of the abdomen, bilateral ankle swelling and progressive limitation in effort. Endocrine...

Introduction: Acromegaly is a rare disease usually caused by growth hormone (GH) secreting pituitary adenomas (PA) and associated with a series of complications, including tumours. The most prevalent tumour types are colonic adenomas, colorectal cancer (1) and nodular goiter (2). We present two acromegaly cases attending our center that associate cervical cancer and another that associates melanoma. Clinical cases: Case 1: A 56-yea...

Background: Only a few cases of pituitary tumor swift from non-functioning to Cushing disease (CD) have been previously presented in the literature. The exact mechanism is still unknown. We present a case of a patient with a non-functioning pituitary adenoma, who developed CD from the residual tumor, 13 years after the initial diagnosis and following 2 surgical interventions and radiation therapy.Case presentation: A 51-year-old woman initially presented...

Introduction: Graves’ dermopathy (also known as pretibial myxedema, thyroid dermopathy, Jadassohn-Dösseker disease or myxedema tuberosum) is a rare extrathyroidal manifestation of Graves’ disease, which is almost always associated with Graves’ ophthalmopathy. Although pretibial myxedema is the most frequent localization of Graves’ dermopathy, the involvement of toes with or without the involvement of pretibial area may occur.Obje...

Introduction: Endogenous Cushing’s syndrome (CS) is a rare disease associated with severe morbidity and increased mortality if untreated. Glucose metabolism is significantly altered in hypercortisolism.Objective: To retrospectively analyse the clinical presentation of a cohort of patients with endogenous CS and study the frequency of glucose metabolism abnormalities as opposed to other clinical signs and symptoms.Material and ...

Background: Insulinomas, the most common functional neuroendocrine tumours of the pancreas, are usually sporadic, benign and solitary.Aims: To assess biochemical data, localisation and treatment outcome of insulinomas diagnosed in a tertiary endocrine centre.Patients and methods: Twenty-five patients (14 F/11 M), aged 49.1±14.1 years, diagnosed with insulinoma in a Neuroendocrine Tumours centre between 2000 and 2014 were retro...

Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) is an aggressive form of malignancy, virtually incurable except by complete surgical resection. With insidious onset and occasional rare clinical variants, it is often diagnosed late in the course of disease and has a poor prognosis. We aimed to evaluate diagnostic efficiency, treatment modalities and outcome in patients admitted to our department between 2004 and 2015, diagnosed with MTC, with emphasis on rare clinical presentations. We ident...

Introduction: Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is the most common endocrine malignancy. It represents over 80% of all follicular derived well-differentiated thyroid cancers. Despite the fact that the majority of PTCs are well differentiated and have a low rate of local invasion, recurrences, or metastases, there are complex cases which require a multidisciplinary team for a favourable result.Methods: Clinical examination, blood tests, scintigraphy, CT s...

Introduction: Acromegalic bone disease is characterized by an increased prevalence of fragility vertebral fractures (VFs). However, an effective, non-invasive and cost-efficient imaging technique that can diagnose early bone alterations in this category of patients is yet to found. The use of bone mineral density (BMD) is not as useful as in other causes of osteoporosis as excess GH leads to specific microarchitectural alteration of trabecular bone, which don’t translate ...

Background: Dopamine agonists (DA) are the first-line treatment for macroprolactinomas. However, up to 10% of patients fail to respond to medical therapy.Aim: To assess biochemical resistance rate to DA treatment in a large series of patients with macroprolactinoma and to analyze possibilities to overcome this resistance.Patients and methods: 195 patients with macroprolactinomas, treated with DA for at least 2 years, were retrospec...