Endocrine Abstracts

The incidental discovery of adrenal tumors in the course of computer tomography scanning for various reasons has led to the more detailed study of this type of tumors.The aim was to study the anatomical distribution of primary adrenal tumors at diagnosis.The archives of all patients with primary adrenal tumors having been hospitalized in the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism of Metaxa Hospital, Pireaus, Greece from 01.01.2...

Primary pituitary tumors are relatively rare and mainly benign.The aim was to study the primary pituitary tumors presenting during a 10-year period in a single center.The archives of all patients with primary pituitary tumors having been hospitalized from 01.01.2000 to 30.06.2010 in the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism of Metaxa Hospital were studied. Within this cohort of patients 128 were female (63%) and 75 (37%) were ...

Polymyalgia rheumatica is a chronic autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic disorder of unknown aetiology. Hashimoto thyroiditis is an autoimmune thyroid disorder characterised by the presence of antithyroid antibodies. Hashimoto thyroiditis has been described in patients with systemic autoimmune disorders such as systemic lupus erythematosus. The aim of the study was to describe the case of a patient who had polymyalgia rheumatica and developed Hashimoto thyroiditis.<p class="a...

The adrenolytic agent mitotane [o,p’-DDD or 1,1-(o,p’-dichlorodiphenyl)-2,2-dichloroethane] is a derivative of the insecticide DDT and is used for the treatment of adrenal carcinoma. It induces necrosis and atrophy of the adrenal cortex. Estrogenic action after single exposure but intense antiestrogenic action after repeated exposure of porcine ovarian follicles has been observed in vitro (Wojtowicz et al. 2004).The aim of the stu...

Adrenal carcinoma is a rare neoplasm with poor prognosis. Mitotane (o,p′-DDD) is the only known therapeutic agent with action on the adrenal. Although it has been used for many decades, its pharmacological properties and exact mechanism of action are still debated. It has been suggested that its therapeutic effect is dose-dependent (Baudin et al 2001). High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) has been used for the exact measurement of mitotane dose.<p cla...

The detection of antithyroid antibodies, specifically of antithyroglobulin antibodies, in patients with differentiated thyroid carcinoma after near-total thyroidectomy, radioiodine therapy and thyroxine suppression presents difficulties in screening patients for residual disease or recurrence of the disease as it may interfere with thyroglobulin measurement. The aim of the study was to estimate the rate of decrease in antithyroid antibody levels in patients with differentiated...

Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma (MTC) is a rare cancer that arises from the thyroid C-cells and occurs as sporadic in 75% of the cases. In 25% of MTC cases, mutations of the RET proto-oncogene are responsible for the development of three dominantly inherited neoplastic disorders including multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN) 2A, MEN 2B and familial medullary thyroid carcinoma (FMTC). Since 2–8% of MTC cases considered sporadic conceal germline mutations, direct analysis of the ...

Familial medullary thyroid carcinoma (FMTC) is caused by germ-line mutations in the RET proto-oncogene. These mutations concern mainly exons 10 and 11, whereas mutations in exons 13–16 are rare. Mutations in exon 8 have been reported in the literature only twice.We performed direct analysis of exons 7–19 and 21 of RET gene in two apparently unrelated Greek index-patients with FMTC, presenting negative initial screening for mutations in exons 10...