Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: The approach for initial thyroid hormone suppression in patients who undergo surgery for differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC), is based upon the risk of disease recurrence. In particular, recent American Thyroid Association guidelines suggest to maintain TSH levels between 0.1 and 0.5 mU/l and less than 0.1 mU/l for patients with ‘intermediate’ and ‘high’ risk respectively. The aim of the study is to identify the major predictive factors of LT4...

Background: In a previous publication we identified the major predictive factors of levothyroxine (LT4) requirement and proposed an efficient nomogram to calculate LT4 substitutive starting dose after total thyroidectomy for benign disease. The aim of this study was to assess whether the LT4 requirement differs between the tablet and the soft gel capsules formulations.Methods: One hundred and three consecutive patients su...

Thyroglobulin (Tg) is a highly sensitive tumor marker of differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC). To optimize the sensitivity, guidelines recommend Tg measurement after stimulation with recombinant TSH (rh-TSH) 6–12 months after radio remnant ablation (RRA). Based on recent evidence in Literature, it is possible to avoid the measurement of Tg after stimulation with rh-TSH (S-Tg) in presence of undetectable values of basal Tg (B-Tg) if high functional sensitivity (0.1 ng/ml) m...

Introduction: Differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) is the most frequent endocrine cancer. After surgery followed, if any, by 131I radio remnant ablation (RRA), follow-up monitoring consists of neck ultrasonography (US) and measurements of thyroglobulin (Tg) levels and anti-Tg antibodies (Ac-Tg) both on levothyroxine (L-T4) therapy and after recombinant TSH (rTSH). The aim of our study is to define a cut-off of Tg before RRA (RRA-Tg) during <...

Hirsutism affects 5–10% of women of reproductive age and may be the initial sign of an androgen disorder. We describe two cases of occult Sertoli-Leydig ovarian cell tumor suspected only on the basis of clinical and laboratory features.The first patient, a 42 year-old woman came to our attention for hirsutism. Several blood samples showed a very high testosterone concentration (~4 ng/ml), while non-ovarian causes of hyperandrogenism were excluded. A...

Hyperthyroidism associated to hyperthyrotropinemia is a rare condition which can be due to two different causes: resistance to thyroid hormones and TSH secreting adenoma. The differential diagnosis is not easy.We have observed 8 patients with hyperthyroidism associated to inappropriately elevated TSH. All patients had similar basal levels of thyroid hormones and 7 out of 8 had a multinodular goiter.Four out of 8 patients showed lac...