Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Patients with Cushing’s Syndrome (CS) have a high risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE) related to a hypercoagulable state. Previous studies showed increased levels of procoagulant factors but also an elevation of some of the anticoagulants factors and fibrinolytic enzymes. Once patients achieve disease remission, there is a significant decrease of some procoagulant factors but if these alterations are completely reversible is still unclear. Compared to tradit...

Introduction: Endogenous hypercortisolism is associated with cardio-metabolic complications and promotes the deposition of lipids in different tissues, particularly in the liver. However, the prevalence of hepatic steatosis in patients with Cushing’s syndrome (CS) has been little investigated so far and only one previous study reported a prevalence of 20% using computed tomography. The aim of the study is to evaluate the prevalence of hepatic steatosis and the organ-speci...

Objective: The diagnosis of central hypoadrenalism (HPAI) is a major clinical challenge. The gold standard procedure remains insuline tolerance test (ITT). Liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) is considered the best procedure for the evaluation of cortisol levels. This study aimed to evaluate cut-offs of serum (TM-SeC) and salivary cortisol (SaC) by LC-MS/MS and serum cortisol by ECLIA assay (E-SeC) after Standard dose ACTH test (SDCT) in diagnosing HPAI.<...

Background: Pituitary tumors are mostly sporadic, but in less than 5% of cases they can be associated to genetic syndromes, so harbouring germline mutations. Familial pituitary tumors are often more aggressive, so it’s important to detect them, for both a better early diagnosis and genetic counselling. Before the development of Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS), Sanger sequencing was the most widely used method of DNA sequencing. Therefore, DNA samples were analysed follo...

Introduction: Hypotonic hyponatremia is frequently observed after pituitary surgery. In this context, use of vasopressin V2-receptor antagonists is not standardized. The aim of this retrospective study is to explore the role of Tolvaptan in the management of acute hyponatraemia after pituitary surgery.Methods: We collected clinical, safety and efficacy data of patients treated with Tolvaptan after pituitary surgeryin our Centre between April 2011 and Feb...

Background: The main challenge in the diagnosis of arginine vasopressin deficiency (AVP-deficiency, formerly known as central diabetes insipidus), is its distinction against primary polydipsia. Hypertonic saline stimulated copeptin showed a high diagnostic accuracy of 97% in distinguishing between AVP-deficiency and primary polydipsia (Fenske W, Refardt J, NEJM 2018), but comprises discomfort for patients and requires close sodium monitoring. Arginine stimulated copeptin showe...