Endocrine Abstracts

The management of loco-regional metastases in patients with differentiated thyroid carcinoma is still debated. Current American Thyroid Association guidelines state that in this context the main goal is to differentiate between low-volume metastatic disease that will progress and that remaining stable over time.Aim of our study was to evaluate the behavior of suspicious or cytologically confirmed lymph node metastases, detected after initial treatment (i...

Abstract: An individualized risk-based approach to the treatment of thyroid cancer is being extensively discussed in the recent literature, but controversies remain about the ideal surgical approach. In particular, if some data showed that properly selected thyroid cancer patients can be treated with lobectomy (LT) with excellent clinical outcomes, other results demonstrated an increased incidence of persistent recurrent disease in patients submitted to LT with respect to thos...

Abstract: During hormonogenesis, thyroid cells are physiologically exposed to high levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) which could either be involved in the pathogenesis of thyroid cancer or exert a cytotoxic effect. We analyzed the oxidative status of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) either directly, by measuring H2O2 generation by NADPH oxidases (NOXs), and indirectly, by evaluating the antioxidant activity of glutathione peroxidase (GPX), which neutr...

An increasing prevalence of papillary thyroid carcinomas (PTC) of small size have been recorded in recent years. These tumors have a favorable outcome in most cases, and total thyroidectomy without radioiodine therapy is suggested for microcarcinomas (defined as ≤1 cm). The 6th edition of the TNM staging system for thyroid cancers includes in the T1 category tumors ≤2 cm, limited to the thyroid. Aim of the present study was to evaluate the clinical/pathological fea...

Thyroid cancer represents the second more frequent tumor among those diagnosed during pregnancy. Indeed, during pregnancy thyroid volume increases by 20–30% and new nodules can appear, due to the effect of choriogonadotropin which stimulates thyroid growth. Hence, it has been proposed that thyroid cancer diagnosed during pregnancy could harbour a poorer prognosis. Aim of the present study was to compare the clinical outcome in the following 3 groups of patients affected w...

Epigenetic deregulation is emerging as a component of the parathyroid tumorigenesis. We identified a long non-coding RNA (LNCRNA) signature clearly distinguishing parathyroid adenomas (PAds) and carcinomas from normal glands. Among the deregulated LncRNAS, HAR1B was upregulated in PAds harboring the common chromosome 11q loss of heterozygosity (Chr11q-LOH; n=10) compared with PAds harboring normal chromosome 11 haplotype (Chr11q-WT; n=12; P&...

Recently, the G534E variant of the HABP2 gene was reported as the underlying genetic defect in large kindred with non-syndromic familial non medullary thyroid cancer (FNMTC), but these data were not confirmed in additional cohorts. Consistently, we found in our wide series of FNMTC that the HABP2G534E variant is frequent, but does not segregate with the disease. Nevertheless, a possible role for this gene in the pathogenesis of FNMTC cannot definitely ruled out also because co...

We previously described aberrant expression of microRNAs belonging to the chromosome 19 cluster (C19MC) and the close miR-371-373 cluster in two-thirds of parathyroid carcinomas (PCas). Therefore, we investigated the involvement of the miR-371-373 cluster in parathyroid tumours, where miR-372 was the most consistently upregulated. miR-372 is known to be highly expressed in human embryonic stem cells and definitely downregulated upon differentiation. Moreover, miR-372 promotes ...

Though there is no evidence of a constitutive nuclear accumulation of β-catenin, the Wnt/β-catenin pathway might be deregulated in parathyroid tumours. We investigated unphosphorylated active β-catenin distribution by western blot in 16 typical parathyroid adenomas (PAds): β-catenin accumulation in the nuclear protein fractions varied from the levels detected in Caco-2 cells with constitutively active Wnt signalling (three PAds) to the levels measured in HE...

Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) is associated with increased risk of kidney stones. Hypercalciuria and urine oxalate excretion are considered risk factors for urolithiasis in PHPT stone-formers. Recently, the anion-exchanger SLC26A6 has been involved in the oxalate metabolism. Slc26a6-null mice showed hyperoxalemia, hyperoxaluria resulting in dramatic calcium oxalate urolithiasis. We tested the hypothesis that urine oxalate excretion in PHPT patients might be modulat...