Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Surgery is the main therapeutic option for advanced endometrial cancer; however, when disease relapses, chemotherapy is the only option. Chemoresistance is a very common phenomenon in these tumors. We previously demonstrated that GH protects breast cancer cells towards the cytotoxic effects of doxorubicin, inducing chemoresistance. Recent evidences show that endometrial cancer cells secrete GH, stimulating their own growth in an autocrine fashion.<p class="abst...

Background: Bronchial carcinoids (BC) are still orphan of medical therapy. We previously demonstrated that the typical BC human cell line NCI-H727 is sensitive to Everolimus, in terms of cell viability reduction, while the atypical human BC cell line NCI-H720 is not. However, the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon have not been fully clarified.Aim: The aim of our study is to investigate the mechanisms of resistance to mTOR inhibitors in BC cells.<...

Bronchial carcinoids (BC) are rare tumors originating from endocrine cells dispersed in the respiratory epithelium. Currently, the main BC treatment is surgery, that can be curative in most of the cases, but is not feasible for large, infiltrating and metastatic disease. In these settings, medical therapy is often tried, being mainly represented by chemotherapy and radiation in the attempt to reduce tumor mass, while somatostatin analogues are employed for symptomatic control....

Protein kinase C (PKC) is a key enzyme which regulates proliferation, apoptosis and differentiation, representing a pharmacological target for tumor therapy. PKC is a serin/threonin kinase involved in the control of neoplastic transformation, carcinogenesis, neoplastic invasion, chemoresistance. The role of PKC depends on the tissue and on the specific isoform, among the 11 identified so far. In particular, PKC beta II inhibits cell functions, while PKC delta has a protective ...

Everolimus (RAD001), an immunosuppressant drug, has antineoplastic activity in human neoplasia, including endocrine tumors, due to its ability to inhibit the AKT down-stream signaling pathway. It has been demonstrated that AKT is overexpressed and up-regulated in pituitary tumor, including ACTH-producing pituitary tumors, that are still orphan of an effective medical therapy. We therefore investigated the effects of RAD001 on cell viability, apoptosis and mTOR phosphorilation ...

GH and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) are known to promote breast carcinogenesis. Even if breast cancer (BC) incidence in not increased in female acromegalic patients, mortality is greater as compared to general population. In order to evaluate whether GH/IGF1 excess might influence BC response to therapy, accounting for the increased mortality, we evaluated the effects of GH and IGF1 on cell proliferation of a BC cell line, the MCF7 cells, in the presence of doxorubicine...

Effective medical therapy for persistent/recurrent medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) is not available, yet. Everolimus (RAD001) is a Rapamycin derivative, a potent mTOR pathway inhibitor. RAD001 has been employed in several clinical studies demonstrating antiproliferative and apoptotic effects in human tumors, both in vitro and in vivo, also in combination with somatostatin analogs. The aim of our study was to investigate the antiproliferative effects of RAD001 i...