Endocrine Abstracts

Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) is mostly due to a benign parathyroid tumor (99%). Some have parathyroid ‘atypical adenomas’, rare tumors with histological features of parathyroid cancer (PC) (fibrous trabeculae, thick fibrous bands, mitotic figures in parenchymal cells), without local invasion or metastasis. We evaluated 20 patients with histological diagnosis of atypical adenomas. Patients were 13 women and seven males (mean age: 55±13 yrs). Nineteen patien...

Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) is a common endocrine disease mainly caused by a single parathyroid adenoma. Although the localization of the parathyroid adenoma is not a surgical criteria for parathyroidectomy, this is known to increase the cure rate of PHPT and reduce the complication rate. Neck ultrasound and MIBI-scintigraphy are the first-line localization techniques to detect parathyroid adenomas, however, they have some limitations including the operator-dependent se...

Introduction: Despite its neuroendocrine origin, only recently an international study group proposed a dedicated grading system (IMTCGS) for medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC). IMTCGS is an independent and powerful tool able to predict disease specific survival (DSS) as well as distant metastasis-free (DMFS) and locoregional recurrence-free survivals (LRFS), regardless of other risk factors, including staging.Objectives: To evaluate the performance of IMT...

Background: Distant metastases at diagnosis is the worst prognostic factor for disease specific survival (DSS) in sporadic medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC). Also, lymph node metastases are negative prognostic factors both for DSS and recurrence free survival (RFS). The question whether central (N1a) and latero-cervical compartment lymph nodes metastasis (N1b), separately evaluated, can have a different impact on DSS and RFS remains to be clarified.Patie...

Introduction: Virtually all familial cases of Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma (MTC) have a RET germline mutation. Subjects harboring RET germline mutation without unaware of their condition are defined gene carriers (GC). Thyroid surgery timing is decided upon RET mutation and calcitonin levels (both basal, bCT, and stimulated, sCT). However, bCT and sCT thresholds for planning thyroid surgery have not been established, yet.Methods...

Background: Amiodarone-induced thyrotoxicosis (AIT) is a challenging disease associated with increased morbidity and mortality. The European Thyroid Association guidelines define the role for total thyroidectomy in the management of AIT. However, these recommendations were based on small series, which often lead to heterogeneous results and, importantly, did not identify patients who may benefit from surgery.Materials and methods: Observational longitudi...

Several studies have identified a relationship between oncogene activation and dedifferentiation of PTC. Mutations of RAS, RET/PTC and BRAF modulate the expression of thyroid genes. An impaired NIS expression has been demonstrated in PTCs harboring the BRAFV600E mutation.Aim of this study was to analyze BRAF and RET/PTC1-3 alterations and their influence on the expression of thyroid differentiation genes. Seventy-one PTC samples were studied. Quantitative analysis o...

Introduction: active surveillance (AS) is feasible and safe for low-risk papillary thyroid carcinoma with diameter ≤ 1.3 cm (mPTC), as this type of cancer shows a low percentage of progression. At the present time, there are no prognostic factors which could help to identify mPTCs at higher risk of progression. The aim of this prospective study is to find a specific molecular signature of cases that showed disease progression during AS and which would allow their early i...

Background: The impact of lymph node metastases (LNM) on the outcome of patients with DTC has been reevaluated in the last years. Its relevance is linked not only to the absence/presence of LNM, but also to other features such as number of LNM, dimension and extranodal extension (ENE).Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate in a large series of patients with DTC the impact of LNM on the clinical outcome. Patients were divided according to the risk of ...

Background: Calcitonin (CTN) is the main marker for the diagnosis and follow-up of patients with MTC. Its value, either basal (bCTN) or stimulated (sCTN) after calcium stimulation test (Ca-Test) is used in clinical practice for the diagnosis of patients with suspicious MTC. The aim of our study is to evaluate the performance of bCTN and sCTN in patients undergoing surgery with suspicion of sporadic MTC.Methods: We evaluated 158 consecutive patients (Jan ...