Endocrine Abstracts

Raised levels of IGF-I have been associated with risk of developing several cancers including breast carcinoma. In addition to promoting mitogenesis in breast cancer cells, a number of observations suggest a role for inhibition of apoptosis by IGF-I receptor activation. Ligand binding to IGF-IR leads to activation of both the phosphoinositide-3'-kinase (PI3K) and the Ras/Raf/MAPKinase pathways. Deprivation of serum growth factors induces apoptosis in MCF-7 breast cancer cells ...

Studies in vitro have highlighted the potent anti-cancer effects of the active form of vitamin D, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25D3). However, the in vivo application of 1,25D3 and its synthetic analogs remains problematical due to persistent hypercalcaemic side-effects. Recent studies have shown that it may be possible to overcome this in an autocrine fashion via extra-renal synthesis of 1,25D3. In particular, analysis of prostate and co...

Background: 10% of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (pNETs) are thought to be related to inherited syndromes, (MEN1, MEN4, VHL, NF1 and TSC). Growing evidence suggests, that clinically sporadic appearing pNETs can harbor germline mutations. Here, we report the prevalence of pathological/likely pathological germline variants (P/LP) in 2 cohorts: 1) High-risk and 2) Unselected.Methods: We retrospectively collected clinical data of pNET patients seen at MD ...