Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Pseudo-Cushing’s syndrome (PCS) constitutes a group of physiological or non-physiological medical conditions that mimic Cushing’s syndrome (CS) clinical features along with a mild biochemical hypercortisolaemia which remains under a physiological feedback hormonal control. Physiological conditions such as pregnancy, surgical or emotional stress, severe illness, intense chronic exercise, and non-physiological as chronic alcoholism, obesity, metabolic syndr...

Introduction: Autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD) and abnormal carbohydrate metabolism are the commonest endocrine disorders in the general population. However, the effect that AITD may exert in β-cell secretion and insulin action in patients pre-diabetes has not been investigated before.Methods/design: One hundred and eighty-two patients (157 females) 46.5±14.2 years with pre-diabetes (impaired fasting glucose (IFG) or/and impaired glucose toler...

Cinacalcet is a calcimimetic agent licensed for the treatment of secondary hyperparathyroidism and parathyroid carcinoma. Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1) patients may benefit considerably from cinacalcet. Affected patients have hyperplasia of multiple parathyroid glands, rather than a single resectable adenoma. Surgical cure requires removal of all parathyroid tissue, which is often unsuccessful, resulting in multiple neck explorations and hypoparathyroidism. Cinaca...

Introduction: Ephrin receptors (EPHs) compose the largest known subfamily of receptors tyrosine kinases and are bound and interact with EPHs-interacting proteins (Ephrins). They have a role in tumor growth, invasion, angiogenesis and metastasis of several neoplasms. Aim of the study was to investigate the expression of EPH-A4, -A5, -B2 and -B5 in pituitary lesions. Material and Methods: Our study group consisted of 18 patients (9 males with median age 54...

Introduction: Although computed tomography (CT) is the best mean to identify adrenal neoplasms there is still controversy of the concordance of the estimated radiological and histological size of the lesion. Since the size of adrenal tumours is a major criterion for surgical excision, we investigated whether recent and more sophisticated imaging techniques, can more accurately predict tumor’s size.Methods: We have retrospectively analyzed a series o...

Background: Intestinal metaplasia (IM) of the gastric mucosa is a relatively frequent precancerous lesion. The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence and the kind of IM and also to find parameters that could predict the presence of IM in gastric neuroendocrine neoplasms type 1 (GNEN1).Methods: Fifty-nine (45 females) patients with GNEN1 were retrospectively studied. All patients included in the study had positive parietal-cell antibodies. All pati...

Background and aims: Less than total thyroidectomy (lobectomy, partial or subtotal thyroidectomy) is used mainly to treat thyroid nodules, and/or hyperthyroidism. The aim of the study was to investigate the long term effects of less extensive surgical procedures. such as re-appearance of nodules and the need of thyroxin supplementation, or re-operation.Material and methods: Retrospective study in a tertiary Academic medical center. The study population c...

Background: Gastrin is an early incretin candidate, since it is released by oral glucose and potentiates the glucose-induced insulin secretion. It has been shown that only in hypoglycaemic or hyperglycaemic conditions gastrin release is influenced by changes in blood glucose and insulin concentrations.Aim: To evaluate whether there is a relation between fasting serum glucose and serum gastrin concentrations.Methods: Gastrin and glu...

Introduction: Etomidate is an imidazole derivative which inhibits several enzymatic steps (11β-hydroxylasey, 17β-hydroxylase, 17,20-lyase, cholesterol side-chain cleavage). Intravenous etomidate at sub-anaesthetic doses remains an important option when i.v. administration is required for rapid treatment of severely ill patients with hypercortisolaemia (Cushing’s syndrome, CS) and is almost always very effective.Case series: A 49-year-old w...

Background: Although sunitinib, an oral multitargeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor of RET, VEGFR, PDGFR, c-KIT used for cancer treatment, has a reported prevalence of hypocalcemia of 35%, this has not been documented in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour (pNETs).Methods: We present three, out of 12, patients with pNETs treated with sunitinib who developed grade 1, 2 and 4 hypocalcemia according Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events v3.0 (CTCAE) crite...