Endocrine Abstracts

Sporadic pituitary tumours are generally benign tumours in which the none of the oncogenes or tumour suppressor genes classically mutated in other cancers are commonly mutated, nor are there frequent changes in genes associated with genetic endocrine neoplasia syndromes. Such tumours are associated with excessive but not completely unregulated proliferation, implicating a possible abnormality in a cell signalling pathway in their pathogenesis. Recently, the serine/threonine ki...

Background: Ghrelin was recently discovered as the natural ligand for the G protein-coupled growth hormone secretagogue receptor and induces GH release through GHS-R1a. The octanoylation of its third serine residue is responsible for GH release and receptor binding. A variant of ghrelin devoid of this modification, desoctanoyl-ghrelin, can neither bind to the receptor nor induce GH release. Ghrelin has also been shown to effect cellular proliferation, being pro-proliferative i...

Background and Aim: Clinical and experimental studies demonstrated that total insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) levels are reduced in the patients with poorly controlled diabetes. The aim of the present study was to investigate the levels of IGF-1 in patients with acute metabolic acidosis.Materials and Methods: 17 patients with thype 1 diabetes and moderate or severe metabolic acidosis were recruited for this study. Serum levels of IGF-1 were determin...

Background and aims: Clinical studies demonstrated that hypothyroidism can be a cause of hypercreatininemia. The aims of the present study were to investigate the prevalence of hypercreatininemia in patients with primary hypothyroidism.Materials and methods: We retrospectively studied serum creatinine levels in 54 patients with primary iatrogenic hypothyroidism (iatrogenic hypothyroidism result seccondary to radioactive iodine therapy and surgery). Resul...

Background and aims: Incretin mimetics are a new class of pharmacological agents with antihyperglycemic actions that mimic the actions of incretin hormones originating in the gut, such as glucagon-like peptide (GLP)-1. The thyroid gland exhibit a strong GLP-1 receptor expression in rodents but only low receptor levels in humans. GLP-1 receptors activation stimulates calcitonin secretion and promotes the development of C cell hyperplasia and medullary thyroid cancer in rodents....

Background and aims: Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The therapy with antiretroviral drugs is associated with increasing reports of metabolic abnormalities such as body fat abnormalities, impaired glucose metabolism and insulin resistance, dyslipidemia. We investigated the prevalence of diabetes mellitus in patients with AIDS in treatment with antiretroviral drugs.<p class="...

Introduction: Pituitary incidentaloma is a relatively frequent imagistic finding. Since no therapy is necessary, the follow up protocol is the most important in patients’ approach.Aim: We present a study in patients diagnosed with pituitary incidentaloma, admitted in I.Parhon, Bucharest, between 1999 and 2011.Patients and method: This is a retrospective study in 140 patients, diagnosed with pituitary incidentaloma based on CT ...

Introduction: Turner syndrome is a common cause of dwarfism and hypogonadism as is pituitary failure. However the association of the two is rarely thought and reported in the literature. We present two cases of women with hypogonadism diagnosed with Turner syndrome with various degrees of pituitary insuficiency.Case report: The first case presented at 16 years with secondary amenorrhea and showed slightly disharmonic dwarfism. A hypogonadotropic hypogona...

A lot of debate has been going on over when to treat subclinical hypothyroidism. Some studies plead to lower the consensus TSH cutoff value of 10 mUI/l in order to improve general well-being and cardiovascular risk factors with early LT4 treatment. Our study aim was to assess progression of subclinical to overt hypothyroidism and to identify factors that would benefit from early treatment. A cohort of 76 patients with subclinical hypothyroidism was studied retrospectively, ove...

It has been reported that both normal pituitary and pituitary tumours express PPAR gamma, a nuclear hormone receptor, the expression being much more abundant in pituitary tumours. It has also been suggested that PPAR gamma agonists, such as the thiazolidenediones, could be used as a therapeutic option for pituitary tumours. In order to investigate this further, 'Real time' PCR was used to assess PPAR gamma RNA expression, and Western blotting and immunohistochemistry was used ...