Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Multidisciplinary approach to pituitary disease is highly recommended; it requires a close relationship between expert pituitary surgeons and endocrinologists together with several specialists (e.g. neuroradiologists) in order to provide a high-level standard of care. Although there is evidence that neurosurgeons’ expertise is a key element to achieve better outcomes, also endocrinologists’ role is fundamental but it may sometimes encounter real-life barr...

Background: Adult growth hormone (GH) deficiency (AGHD) is related with alterations in body composition, increased abdominal and visceral adiposity, adverse change in lipid and carbohydrate metabolism, and reduction of bone mineral density (BMD).Aim: To compare baseline outcomes concerning body composition and biochemical/hormonal data among adult patients with AGHD referring to a single endocrinological center and grouped according to their history of r...

Background: Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) is the third most common endocrine disorder. The Ca/P ratio is an accurate tool to differentiate patients with PHPT (>3.5 if Ca and P are expressed in mg/dl) from healthy subjects [1]. The reliability of this index is based on the fact that serum Ca and P are inversely related together. However, other disorders of the Ca-P metabolism, such as hypophosphoremia (HypoP), might impair the Ca/P ratio.Aim: To ...

Background: AGHD is a recognized clinical entity, but symptoms are quite nonspecific; the lack of objective tools able to measure patients’ health status remains the main barrier in clinical monitoring and treatment.Aim: The MAGHD Study aims improving AGHD patients’ management through a Smartphone app (MAGHDApp) and a fit-watch integrated with a software framework able to merge daily data of patients’ well-being and physical activity with ...

Background and aim: Several ultrasound (US) classifications for thyroid nodules have been proposed. Since most of them are hardly applicable in clinical practice, we set up the Modena US Thyroid Classification (MUT) that stratifies the risk of malignancy considering both knowledge derived from scientific literature and clinician subjective impression. The aim of the present study was to test the diagnostic accuracy of different thyroid US classification systems, AACE/ACE-AME, ...

Background: Thyroid nodules represent a common clinical finding and their prevalence is increasing worldwide. However, the most recent international guidelines do not give indications on the need to retest adults with previous negative neck ultrasound (US).Aim: To evaluate the incidence of thyroid US abnormalities in patients with previous negative thyroid US and identify patient’s characteristics able to predict the risk of developing thyroid disea...

Introduction: Hypothyroidism treatment is classically based on levothyroxine (LT4). However, 10% of hypothyroid patients treated with LT4 complain of hypothyroidism symptoms, despite normal thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) serum levels. This ”peripheral hypothyroidism” has been linked to decreased availability of free triiodothyronine (fT3), likely related to single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in deiodinase genes (DIO), reducing enzymatic activity. Since...

Objective: The aim of this study was to identify changes in thyroid hormone metabolism occurring in different thyroid functional states and to evaluate tissue response to thyroid hormone changes.Methods: Two hundred subjects (137 F, 63 M, mean age: 50.3±14.4 years) waiting to be treated or treated with total thyroidectomy for differentiated thyroid cancer were enrolled in this study. Thyroid function was investigated measuring TSH, fT4 and fT3, and ...

Objective: Thyroid fine-needle aspiration (FNA) cytology is indeterminate in 15–25% of cases. Recently, cytological analysis was combined to molecular analysis to improve diagnostic accuracy. In the present study, washing liquid of FNA (wFNA) samples were tested for the BRAF V600E mutation, using high resolution melting (HRM) technology. The aim of this study was to demonstrate whether BRAF mutation analysis is accurate in wFNA and, when combined with cytological analysis...

Introduction: Despite normal thyroid-stimulating hormone serum levels, up to 60% of hypothyroid patients are dissatisfied with the treatment. Animal studies suggest that the persistence of symptoms may derive from peripheral hypothyroidism. Combination treatment with levothyroxine and liothyronine is a theoretically plausible solution but its efficacy is still questionable.Aim: To evaluate the effects of personalized twice-daily combination therapy on pe...