Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Although overall accuracy of fine needle aspiration (FNA) in identifying thyroid cancer is considered excellent, 20–30% of aspirates do not allow definitive diagnosis of malignancy. Proto-oncogene somatic mutations such as BRAFV600E in FNA strongly suggest the presence of malignancy. However, only few studies reported the use of circulating BRAFV600E-mutated alleles in plasma as an useful marker for non invasive diagnosis and follow up of this disease.<p...

Paragangliomas (PGLs) and pheochromocytomas (PHEOs) are neural crest-derived tumors (NCD). PGLs can be localized in parasympathetic ganglia (in the head-neck region or in the anterior thorax) or in sympathetic ganglia (in the posterior thorax or in the abdomen). PHEOs can be considered PGLs arising in the adrenal gland.NCD tumors can present as sporadic or familial. The percentage of hereditary forms is supposed to be 25%. The susceptibility genes predis...