Endocrine Abstracts

Unsuspected adrenal masses, or incidentalomas, are increasingly found with the widespread use of thoracic and abdominal imaging. These masses may be hormonally active or nonfunctional and benign or malignant. Clinicians must determine the nature of the mass to decide what treatment, if any, is needed.In our 17 year experience, we observed 232 patients (158 females, 74 males aged 22-91, mean age 69) affected with monolateral incidentaloma. 58 of them (25%...

Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) is a rare entity characterized by clonal proliferation and accumulation of cells resembling the epidermal dendritic cells called Langerhans cells (distinct margins, pink granular cytoplasm, Birbeck granules at electron microscopy and CD1 positivity by immunocytochemistry). These cells in combination with lymphocytes, eosinophils ad normal hystiocytes form the typical LCH lesions. About half of affected patients have extraskeletal manifestati...

Background: Adipocyte and osteoblast derive from the same mesenchimal progenitor. Age-related decrease in bone mass is accompanied by an increase in marrow adipose tissue. Vitamin D3 (VD) inhibits adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes. Recently it has been demonstrated that alendronate (ALN) inhibits adipogenesis while promoting osteoblast differentiation of mesenchimal stem cells.Aim of the study: To evaluate the in vitro role of ALN on 3T3-L1 adi...

Drospirenone (DRSP) is a potent antimineralocorticoid with progestative and moderate antiandrogenic properties. We have previously shown that DRSP exerts a potent antiadipogenic activity in murine and human preadipocytes through specific antagonism of the MR. In the present study responses to DRSP were investigated in a model of diet-induced obesity for 12 weeks. Female 10-week-old C57bl6 mice were fed with normal chow or a high fat diet (HF, containing 45% fat by calories). M...