Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Subacute thyroiditis is an inflammatory condition, most likely of viral origin, which typically presents wit low anterior neck pain, fever and transient thyrotoxicosis. Ultrasonography (US) usually shows a diffuse thyroid enlargement with ill-defined hypoechoic areas.Case: A 55-year old women was admitted in the emergency room, with 2 weeks of anterior neck pain, cervical compressive symptoms of dysphagia, fever and palpitations. On physical ...

Objective: In vitro data suggest that somatostatin receptors (SSTR) and mTOR pathways might represent reasonable targets for novel therapies, since are involved in growth of adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC). However, in vitro analysis of combination treatments, targeting both mTOR and SSTR as compared to mitotane, and detailed tissue typing mTOR/SSTR pathway are poorly explored in ACC.Methods: This study was designed to characterize the t...

Background: Mitotane (o,p’DDD) is the reference therapy for adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) and should undergo metabolization in o,p’DDE and o,p’DDA to exert its anti-proliferative activity. We have previously shown that there is a link between RRM1 gene expression and o,p’DDD activity in an adjuvant setting. Aim of this study was to assess whether RRM1 gene expression is correlated to the bioavailability and cytotoxic activity of o,p’DDD and its metabo...

A functional sodium iodide symporter (NIS) is essential for radioiodine treatment of thyroid cancer. Unfortunately, most of de-differentiated tumours as well as anaplastic thyroid cancers loss the ability to concentrate iodine. Loss of NIS expression usually depends on epigenetic modifications, suggesting the use of epigenetic drugs as promising tools for re-differentiation. Panobinostat (LBH589) is a novel deacetylase inhibitor, acting at nanomolar concentrations, currently i...

Subclinical CS, mild hypercortisolism without overt clinical manifestations, is the most frequent (5–8%) hormonal abnormality detected in patients with secreting adrenal incidentalomas.Unclear clinical features and mild hypercortisolism make the diagnosis problematic, although laboratory criteria have recently been reviewed. In these cases, scintiscan is a central tool to define the adrenal functional activity.A 60-year-old ma...

Introduction: Cells with stem-like properties have been reported in benign and malignant thyroid diseases, and can be propagated by culturing them as non-adherent spheres.Design: Aim of the present study was to widely characterize the stem-like cells in tumor and normal thyroid tissues and in the corresponding in vitro-cultured thyrospheres, and to investigate in vivo the proangiogenic potential of thyrospheres in a zebrafish model....

Purpose: Mitotane is the reference systemic therapy for adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC), but its mechanism of action and possible predictors of treatment response remain poorly defined. Our aim was to evaluate the gene expression of ribonucleotide reductase large subunit 1 (RRM1) and excision repair cross-complementation group 1 (ERCC1) in ACC as potential biomarkers for clinical outcome and response to mitotane.Experimental design: Forty-five and 47 tiss...

The intensive physical activity is often associated with cardiac changes, particularly involving the right ventricular (RV) chamber. However, the molecular mechanisms involved in the RV physiologic adaptation to long-term training are not completely understood. In the present study we investigated the role of the growth hormone/insulin like growth factor 1 (GH/IGF-1) axis in the RV remodeling of athletes.Nineteen male top levels rowers and 19 age-matched...

Background: Invasive nonfunctioning (NF) pituitary neuroendocrine tumors (PitNETs) are non-resectable neoplasms associated to frequent relapse and significant comorbidities. As current treatments often fail against NF-PitNETs, identifying actionable therapeutic targets is essential. We focused on the angiopoietin-2 (Angpt2)/Tie2 axis, usually active in endothelial cells (ECs).Methods: ANGPT2 plasma levels in NF-PitNET patients and healthy controls were m...