Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: Phenotypic variability and lack of genotype-phenotype correlations still represent a major challenge in the surveillance of patients carrying germline MEN1 (Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia type 1) mutations. MEN1 associated gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs) are highly penetrant and show an indolent course. However, they are still the leading cause of death in MEN1 syndrome. Some single-center and national studies reported higher prevalence of GEP-...

Hereditary genetic variants are common among patients with endocrine tumours. Some specific clinical conditions are informative for certain monogenic syndromes (i.e., Carney complex, MEN1, MEN2, von Hippel Lindau syndrome) but manifestations characteristic for these syndromes occur more commonly as apparently sporadic. Other tumours, i.e., pheochromocytoma/paragangliomas (PPGL) are linked to multiple genes, hence a multigene approach in molecular genetic testing strategy is re...

Introduction: Pheochromocytomas and paragangliomas (Pheo/PGL) are rare neuroendocrine tumours arising from the adrenal medulla or the symphathetic paraganglia, respectively. Germline mutations are present in ~40% of the patients. To date, at least 16 genes have been demonstrated to be involved in the genetic background of Pheo/PGL. Prioritization in order of genes tested can be applied, but if the probability of a disease-associated germline mutation exceeds 10% the testing of...

Background and aim: Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) is a frequent endocrinopathy among postmenopausal women, leading to hypercalcaemia, osteoporosis and nephrolithiasis. PHPT may represent the first manifestation of certain familial syndromes. Among these, multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 1 (MEN-1) caused by germline mutation of MEN1, the gene encoding menin, is the most frequent. Additionally, somatic mutations of MEN1 and microRNAs silencing <e...

Objective: Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1) is a rare heritable tumor syndrome caused by germline mutations of MEN1 gene affecting mainly the parathyroid, pituitary and pancreas. Phenotype varies widely, even in first-degree relatives. Recently it has been shown that functionally active gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs), initially frequently diagnosed as sporadic cases, lead to MEN1 diagnosis. Non-functioning tumors are increasingly rec...