Endocrine Abstracts

An increasing prevalence of papillary thyroid carcinomas (PTC) of small size have been recorded in recent years. These tumors have a favorable outcome in most cases, and total thyroidectomy without radioiodine therapy is suggested for microcarcinomas (defined as ≤1 cm). The 6th edition of the TNM staging system for thyroid cancers includes in the T1 category tumors ≤2 cm, limited to the thyroid. Aim of the present study was to evaluate the clinical/pathological fea...

Somatostatin (SS) binds to different SS receptors (SSTR1–5) and SS analogues are the first choice medical treatment of GH-secreting pituitary adenomas (GH-omas). A subset of patients is resistant to SS, although the mechanisms involved in SS resistance are not fully understood. Recent studies identified specific protein–protein interactions as determinant in the regulation of receptor anchoring and signalling. Filamin A (FLNA) is a widely expressed cytoskeleton prote...

GH-secreting and non-functioning pituitary tumors are clinically distinct, usually benign but potentially locally aggressive lesions originating from the replication of a single mutated pituitary cell. As for the underlying genetic and epigenetic alterations, also the patterns of activation of specific signaling pathways as well as the prognostic molecular factors leading to local invasiveness are, to date, largely unknown. In this study, we used two-dimensional electrophoresi...

A common polymorphic variant of the GH receptor (exon-3 deletion, d3GHR) has been linked with increased response to recombinant human GH (rhGH) in some, but not all, GH deficient (GHD) and non-GHD patients. Aim of this study was to investigate the impact of the GHR genotype on the phenotype of GHD adults and on the metabolic effect of short- and long-term rhGH therapy, with particular focus on glucose homeostasis (1 year: n=100 and 5 years: n=50). Effects of rhGH...