Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Adrenocortical tumors (ACT) are common diseases mostly benign, but among them, adrenocortical carcinomas (ACC) appear highly aggressive with metastatic potential. Wnt/β-catenin pathway is frequently switched on in ACT, with β-catenin greatly dephosphorylated and consequently activated. While IWR1 induces an increase in Axin2 protein levels, XAV939 inhibits tankyrase 1 and 2 (thus stabilizing Axin): both stimulate β-catenin phosphorylation and degra...

Background: Adrenocortical tumors (ACT) are classified as adenomas (ACA) or carcinomas (ACC). β-Catenin constitutive activation is a frequent alteration in benign and malignant ACT. E-cadherin was discovered as a protein associated with β-catenin which plays a crucial role in cadherin-mediated cell adhesion. N-cadherin seems to be involved in the development of malignant ACT, but information regarding expression of N-cadherin or E-cadherin in ACT is very limited....

In patients with primary aldosteronism (PA), adrenal vein sampling (AVS) is considered the gold standard to distinguish between unilateral and bilateral autonomous production of aldosterone, while diagnostic imaging tests by CT scan or MRI are often inconclusive for the diagnosis. To date agreement is lacking on the best criteria indicating successful cannulation and lateralization.The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of different diagnostic c...

Introduction: Primary aldosteronism (PA) is a major cause of secondary hypertension. The two major forms of sporadic PA (aldosterone producing adenoma – APA and bilateral adrenal hyperplasia – BAH) can only be reliably differentiated by adrenal venous sampling (AVS). Several mutations have been described for APA, but the pathogenesis of BAH is poorly elucidated. Differentiation of APA and BAH is clinically pivotal, as their treatment is different. There is no blood-b...

Background: Extracellular vesicles (exosomes, microvesicles) shed from tumor cells containing microRNAs can be exploited as markers of malignancy. The preoperative diagnosis of adrenocortical malignancy is difficult and microRNAs have proved useful in the diagnosis of many tumors, including adrenocortical cancer (ACC), but there have no studies to date on extracellular vesicle associated microRNAs in ACC.Aim: To evaluate the diagnostic potential of extra...

Background: Adrenocortical tumors (ACT) include benign and malignant forms. Adrenocortical carcinomas (ACC) are highly malignant neoplasms with poor prognosis and strong metastatic potential. Aurora kinase family members (AK) are serine/threonine kinase involved in the regulation of mitosis. Aurora kinase A (AKA) promotes centrosome maturation and spindle assembly, while aurora kinase B (AKB) is necessary for spindle assembly checkpoint and cytokinesis.A...

Background: Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is the most common malignant tumor of the thyroid gland, accounting for 74–80% of all thyroid cancers. The T1799T>A transversion is an activating mutation of the BRAF oncogene that is common in conventional PTC and specific to it.Aims: To study the prevalence, tumorigenic role and biomolecular implications of rare BRAF variants in a large cohort of patients.Study desig...