Endocrine Abstracts

The adrenal gland displays an important role in integrating neuronal, immune, vascular, metabolic and endocrine signals under a common organ capsule. The adrenal is the central organ of the stress response system, responsible for responses to acute and chronic stress stimuli and, thereby, playing a major role in numerous stress-related disorders. While for other diseases translational scientists developed programs to generate healthy cells to regenerate damaged tissues in pati...

The adrenal gland is a crucial regulator of numerous fundamental biological processes and its hormones are essential for maintaining homeostasis in normal and stressful situations. However, the impact of hypoxia signalling on the function of the adrenal remains poorly understood. During the past years, our research group has focused on enhancing our understanding of hypoxia pathway proteins (HPPs) in the different areas of the adrenal gland. Firstly, we described a crucial rol...

Evidence indicates that the adrenals are sexually dimorphic and asymmetric. These differences may have implications for the prevalence and progression of adrenal diseases, which also show asymmetry and sexual dimorphism. The present study aims to characterize the morphological and metabolic differences associated with adrenal sex and asymmetry in mice and humans. Adrenals were compared bilaterally in male and female C57B/6NRj mice with regard to morphological and hormonal char...

Introduction: Pheochromocytomas represent rare but potential lethal tumors arising from the adrenal medulla. Early recognition and diagnosis represent a challenge due to the non-specific character of signs and symptoms. The classic presentation includes headache, sweating, palpitations and other signs and symptoms of apparent catecholamine excess occurring in paroxysms. Sympathomimetics may result in a similar presentation, potentially complicating the diagnosis.<p class="...

Objective: To document influences of sampling of blood under supine fasting versus seated non-fasting conditions on diagnosis of pheochromocytoma using plasma concentrations of normetanephrine, metanephrine and methoxytyramine (P-NMN/MN/MTY).Design and methods: P-NMN/MN/MTY were measured by liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry in 695 patients at five centers, two of which complied with requirements for supine sampling after an overnight fa...

Aim: To determine diagnostic performance of normetanephrine (NMN) and metanephrine (MN) measured by an enzyme immunoassay (EIA) compared with liquid chromatographic–tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS).Methods: Subjects included 341 patients (174 males) with a mean age of 52 year (range 13–86) tested for PHEO, which was confirmed in 54 patients. Samples where collected from fasting patients after 30 min of supine rest and analyzed for NMN, MN an...

Background: Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) is a group of inherited disorders affecting adrenal steroidogenesis. The main form, 21-hydroxylase deficiency (21-OHD), results from mutations in the CYP21A2 gene. Patients experience hormone deficiencies, and excessive androgens which lead to various symptoms such as hypoglycemia, salt wasting, virilization, and early puberty. Therapy demands high glucocorticoid doses, causing significant side-effects. While new treatm...

Congenital Adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) refers to a group of autosomal-recessive inherited disorders of impaired adrenal steroidogenesis. The most common form is 21-hydroxylase deficiency (21-OHD) caused by mutations in the CYP21A2 gene. Patients lack glucocorticoids and in some cases mineralocorticoids, and present with androgen excess causing hypoglycemia, live-threatening salt wasting, virilisation, and precocious puberty. Treatment includes the replacement of deficie...

Background: LC-MS/MS is replacing immunoassays for serum steroid measurement in clinical labs worldwide. The intrinsic high specificity of LC-MS/MS is supposed to guarantee accurate quantitation, however, differences in pre-analytical and analytical procedures, and overall performance may influence the result. A few studies so far investigated the reproducibility among different LC-MS/MS assays for sex steroids. No data are available for adrenal steroids.<p class="abstext"...

Introduction: Primary aldosteronism (PA) is mainly caused by unilateral aldosterone-producing adenomas (APA) or bilateral adrenal hyperplasia (BAH). Subtype differentiation relies on the invasive and technically challenging adrenal venous sampling (AVS). We recently demonstrated the potential utility of peripheral plasma steroid profiling by LC-MS/MS to distinguish APA and BAH. We tested the following hypotheses: first, if steroid profiling in combination with AVS, effectively...