Endocrine Abstracts

The evidence base for starting early insulin treatment in patients with type 2 diabetes is rather scanty. In the UKPDS trial the intensive treatment of hyperglycaemia in newly detected patients with type 2 diabetes based on insulin or sulponylurea (no separation possible) revealed a significant reduction of myocardial infarction risk (15%, P=0.01), but only after prolonged post-study follow-up after 10 years1. In 2012 the ORIGIN study was published showing ...

In type 1 diabetes mellitus the insulin-secreting β-cells in pancreatic islets of Langerhans are selectively destroyed by autoimmune assault. Since diabetes is caused by the loss of a single cell type it is amenable to treatment by cell replacement therapy. Advances in islet transplantation procedures have demonstrated that people with type 1 diabetes can be cured by human islet transplantation, but the severely limited availability of donor islets has restricted the wide...

Introduction: There are three principal high-throughput methods that have been widely used to determine whole genome miRNAs expression profiles: i) microarrays, ii) qPCR based arrays, and iii) next generation sequencing (NGS). Our aim was to compare the results obtained from these platforms in normal and adenomatous pituitary samples and to validate the results by an independent sample set using qPCR.Material and methods: Using four normal pituitary (NP)...

Background: Current drug treatment options for adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) are rather limited and intensive efforts are going on to find novel effective agents. In our previous functional genomics study, retinoid signalling via the retinoid X receptor (RXR) was identified as a major pathogenic pathway in ACC and we have demonstrated the in vitro activity of 9-cis retinoic acid (9-cisRA) acting via the RXR on NCI-H295R cells and also found that 9-cisRA has antitumou...

Introduction: The morbidity of craniopharyngioma (CP) includes cognitive dysfunction with attention deficits, impaired episodic memory and processing speed (Fjalldal et al., 2013) and CP patients with hypothalamic damage are more affected. fMRI is a technique used to investigate cortical activity by detecting alterations in blood flow in response to stimuli or actions. Previously pre- and post-meal fMRI responses to visual food cues were investigated showing higher ac...

Background: The medical treatment options of adrenocortical cancer are limited. In our previous meta-analysis of adrenocortical tumor genomics data, adrenocortical cancer was found to be associated with reduced retinoic acid production and retinoid X receptor-mediated signaling.Objective: To study the potential antitumoral effects of 9-cis-retinoic acid (9-cisRA) on the adrenocortical cancer cell line NCI-H295R and in a xenograft model....

Introduction: Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are widely used for treating various upper gastrointestinal disorders. A well-known side effect of PPI therapy that may cause serious differential diagnostic problems is the elevation of serum chromogranin A (CgA).Objective: We report a case with highly elevated serum CgA in a patient with bilateral adrenal adenomas that was clearly associated with PPI therapy. Suspension of PPI intake for a few days resulted i...

Background: Temozolomide (TMZ) has been suggested as a treatment option for patients with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours (PNETs). The tumour response to TMZ has been linked to expression levels of O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) and components of the mismatch repair (MMR) system. However, there is no in vitro data on TMZ sensitivity and the expression of MGMT and MMR components in PNETs. Moreover, the effect of TMZ exposure on chemosensitivity and exp...

Introduction: The steroidogenesis inhibitors ketoconazole and metyrapone are frequently used for treatment of Cushing’s syndrome, but can cause side effects. LCI699 is a known 11β-hydroxylase inhibitor, but effects on other steroidogenic enzymes are unknown. We aimed to compare effects of LCI699, ketoconazole, and metyrapone in vitro.Methods: HAC-15 cells, with or without 10 nM ACTH, and three primary human adrenocortical adenoma cultu...

Adrenocortical cancer (ACC) is a rare cancer with poor prognosis and scant treatment options. Mitotane alone, or in combination with cytotoxic chemotherapy, represents the referral current treatment for patients with unresectable ACC. Recent studies have shown that mTOR inhibitors suppress growth of ACC cells. This study aimed at evaluating the effects of mitotane in combination with mTOR inhibitors. In H295 and SW13 cells we tested the effects of a 6 day treatment with increa...