Endocrine Abstracts

Studies on the distribution of Somatostatin Receptor (sst)-subtypes on endocrine tumors, the development of sst-subtype specific analogues, the elucidation of phenomena like receptor desensitization and ligand-receptor internalization, and the potential consequences (and reversal) of the epigenetic silencing of sst offer new diagnostic and therapeutic modalities in endocrine diseases:1. apart from sst2 activation, Somatostatin analogues target...

Dopamine receptors (DR) are expressed in the majority of corticotroph pituitary tumors and the dopamine agonist cabergoline is effective in controlling cortisol hypersecretion in around 50% of patients with Cushing’s disease (CD). In order to characterize the tumors expressing D2 receptors and the profile of patients which might respond to the treatment with D2 agonists, the current study has the aim to correlate D2 receptor expression and...

Dopamine receptors was suggested to be expressed in medullary thyroid cancer (MTC). The aim of the current study was to evaluate the expression of D2 dopamine receptor in MTC and the effectiveness of the dopamine agonist cabergoline in patients with MTC. Five paraffin-embedded cases of MTC obtained after thyroidectomy were used to evaluate D2 receptor expression by immunohistochemistry. Fifteen patients (7 males, 8 females, 36–78 years) with post-sur...

Cabergoline has been recently demonstrated to normalize cortisol secretion in more than one third of patients with Cushing’s disease (CD). The aim of this study was to evaluate short-term (3-months) and long-term (12-24 months) effects of cabergoline treatment on the main systemic complications of CD, including hypertension, glucose intolerance and dyslipidemia. Twenty patients with CD unsuccessfully treated by neurosurgery entered the study. Cabergoline was admistered at...

Chronic exposure to hypercortisolism has a significant impact on patient’s health and Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL), as demonstrated with generic questionnaires. Objective: Develop and validate a disease-generated questionnaire to evaluate HRQoL in patients with Cushing’s syndrome-CS- (Cushing QoL). Methods: After a literature review, interviews with expert endocrinologists and 10 patients identified HRQoL domains and clinical aspects of the disease; an anal...

The European Registry on Cushing’s Syndrome (ERCUSYN) is designed to collect prospective and follow-up data on patients with Cushing’s syndrome (CS) and currently (Sep 2013) includes 1006 patients (804 F, 202 M; mean age (+S.D.) 44.7±13.3 years) from 57 centers in 28 countries.Six hundred and sixty one (66%) had pituitary-dependent CS (PIT-CS), 242 (24%) adrenal-dependent CS (ADR-CS), and 103 (10%) CS from other etiologies, ...