Endocrine Abstracts

Cushing’s syndrome is associated with life-threatening complications, as well as high rates of perioperative mortality and morbidity. Authors present clinical scenarios, in which one should consider the usage of intravenous etomidate as an accurate, safe and effective drug for hypercortisolaemia.Case 1: 23-year-old female with severe Cushing’s syndrome due to metastatic adrenocortical carcinoma was admitted to the Department of Endocrinology. S...

Background: Etomidate is mainly used in general anesthesia. In some rare cases it can also be helpful in treating life-thretening severe hypercortisolaemia (in much lower doses) in patients who are not able to take oral medications or when oral drugs are not available.Case Presentation: Fifty-seven-year-old woman with symptoms of virilization, hypokalemia and muscle weekness for 6 months was admitted to Department of Endocrinology. On admission cortisol ...

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare and very aggressive tumor with poor prognosis. The aim of the study was to identify prognostic factors of recurrence-free (RFS) and overall survival (OS) in patients with ACC.We present a retrospective analysis in 52 patients diagnosed with ACC. A number of factors both histological and clinical were analyzed. Recurrent disease was defined as a new lesion confirmed in imaging. Kaplan-Meier method and multivariate ...

Objective: Withdrawal of the medications prior to screening for primary aldosteronism is problematic, sometimes impossible and probably not necessary as the routine practice. The aim of this study was to evaluate diagnostic accuracy of aldosterone-to-renin ratio in hypertensive patients undergoing laboratory screening for primary aldosteronism without obligatory drug modifications.Methods: Plasma aldosterone and direct renin concentrations from 20 patien...

Objective: Previous studies indicated that two glucocorticoid receptor gene polimorphisms bclI and N363S (GC-S) are associated with increased sensitivity to glucocorticoids and two other polymorphisms 9β and ER22/23EK (GC-I) are related to decreased sensitivity to glucocorticoids. The aim of the study was to determine whether these genetic changes can effect on the occurence of steroid-induced adverse events.Methods: One hundred and fifty p...

Background: The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAS) constitutes a key hormonal system in the physiological and pathological regulation of blood pressure. In effort to understand complex and multifunctional aspects of this system, current biochemical approaches target to characterize and define its various components with angiotensin II being in the mainstream.Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate concentrations of angiotensin II in hype...

Background: The diagnostic process to unveil the underlying cause of endogenous Cushing’s syndrome (CS) is often challenging. Sometimes, atypical manifestation of the disease or only periodic hypercortisolaemia with spontaneous resolutions are observed and make the diagnosis even more difficult. Although it is common in primary pigmented nodular adrenocortical disease (PPNAD), pituitary corticotroph adenoma can manifest itself as cyclic Cushing’s syndrome as well.</p...