Endocrine Abstracts

COVID-19 is affecting Northern Italy since early 2020 and long-term consequences of the pandemia are progressively coming to light. Over the past months, a marked increase in the number of adults with rapid-onset severe diabetes has been observed at the Diabetes Clinic thus prompting an evalutation into possible links with COVID-19. Of note, diabetes and hyperglycaemia are known to worsen during COVID-19 and there are several reports of new-onset hyperglycaemia during SARSCoV2...

Silibinin, a milk thistle extract with known hepatoprotective effects, has recently been shown to act upon tumoral corticotropes and revert the Cushingoid phenotype in an allograft mouse model (Riebold et al. 2015). Silbinin is known to inhibit HSP90 -a chaperone to the glucocorticoid receptor-thereby restoring sensitivity to glucocorticoid negative feedback in tumoral corticotropes. Aim of the present study was to assess the effect of silibinin on ACTH synthesis and ...

Background: 20% of the familial isolated pituitary adenoma (FIPA) population harbour an aryl hydrocarbon receptor-interacting protein (AIP) gene mutation. The recognition of whether a variant is pathogenic can be difficult, in cases where the observed change does not lead to a truncated protein. Segregation with disease in a family, in silico predictions, loss of heterozigosity in the tumour, in vitro functional studies and screening of the variant in controls may help in asce...

Background: In vitro and animal experiments have clearly demonstrated that excessive cortisol, GH and prolactin secretion, as well as dopamine agonists (D2As) and somatostatin analogs (SSAs), often prescribed for their treatment, affect the immune response and the onset/evolution of autoimmune diseases (AIDs) through direct and indirect complex mechanisms. Data from clinical studies are very scanty.Study aim: To assess the 1) distribution of AIDs accordi...

GH and IGF-I exert an important role in the control of bone formation. Osteopenia and osteoporosis are a frequent recurrence in patients with thalassemia. Due to the high prevalence of GH deficiency (GHD) in adult thalassemic patients (Scacchi et al., Clin Endocrinol 2007), we investigated the possible role of GH - IGF-I abnormalities in the pathogenesis of the osteopenia/osteoporosis of this disease.Study: Sixty-four adult thalassemic pati...