Endocrine Abstracts

IntroductionAdrenocortical Carcinoma (ACC) is a rare aggressive cancer which carries a poor prognosis. Adjuvant mitotane improves survival but is limited by poor response rates and resistance following tumour recurrence. Mitotane’s efficacy has been attributed to intracellular accumulation of toxic free cholesterol (FC) predominantly through inhibition of cholesterol storage through SOAT1. Yet SOAT1 specific inhibitors demonstrate inferior efficacy ...

Primary aldosteronism (PA) arises from one or both adrenal glands and is a common cause of secondary hypertension accounting for approximately 5-12% of all hypertension. Current therapy involves mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists for bilateral disease (60%) or adrenalectomy for unilateral disease (30%). We investigate treatment planning of percutaneous adrenal ablation as an alternative definitive therapeutic modality for unilateral and bilateral disease. The main objectiv...

Rationale: The Aldosterone:Renin ratio (ARR) is commonly used for patients fulfilling screening criteria for primary hyperaldosteronism (PA), followed by confirmatory testing. Reference intervals for interpretation of the ARR vary in accordance with local population and assay 1. While ARR provides high sensitivity for PA, this is compromised by low specificity, further compounded by medication interference. However, additional variables may improve the specificity of ARR as a ...

Adrenocortical carcinoma is a rare malignant tumour that starts in the adrenal gland, accounting for 4% of all adrenal tumours. Functioning ACC can cause symptoms related to the overproduction of hormones and large tumours can press on nearby organs. Primary treatment for ACC tumour is surgery to remove the tumour, and may also include Chemotherapy or Radiation to stop the cancer cells from spreading. Therefore, more affective therapies for delivering therapeutics to the tumou...