Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Cushing’s disease (CD) is a rare but devastating condition, caused by hypersecretion of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) from a corticotroph adenoma in the anterior pituitary. CD is associated with a five-fold excess mortality and clinical features including hypertension, diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis, and depression. First-line treatment is transsphenoidal surgery, but this is effective in only 65% of cases and the relapse rate is high. Other treatment ...

Context: Cushing’s disease (CD) results from the release of high levels of adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) from a pituitary adenoma. Increased ACTH secretion stimulates excess cortisol production, causing weight gain, hypertension, diabetes and depression. The only curative treatment is transsphenoidal surgery, but the rate of recurrence is high and there is a lack of suitable medical therapies. RNA-interference is a mechanism of post-transcriptional gene silencing th...