Endocrine Abstracts

Pheochromocytomas and paragangliomas (PCC/PGL) are rare tumours of the adrenal gland or derived from sympathetic and parasympathetic paraganglia occurring sporadically or as part of a familial cancer syndrome. Up to 20% of them are diagnosed in children, and they are not genetically well characterized. As most are functional tumors, children more often present with signs and symptoms related to hypertension. In fact, sustained hypertension is found in more than 60–90% of ...

Pheochromocytomas (PCCs) and paragangliomas (PGLs) are rare tumours of neural crest origin, previously referred to as ‘the 10 percent’ tumor due in part to the frequency of inherited forms. During the last decade the scientific community has been witness to a fast increase of knowledge of the genetics of these tumours. In this regards, the use of different strategies and new platforms has allowed to identify up to date thirteen PCC/PGLs susceptibility genes. Currentl...

Thyroid paraganglioma (TP) is a rare disorder that sometimes poses problems in differential diagnosis with medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC). So far, differential diagnosis is solved with the help of some markers that are frequently expressed in MTC (TTF1, calcitonin, and CEA). However, some of these markers are not absolutely specific of MTC and may be expressed in other tumors. Here we report 3 new cases of TP and describe our strategy to design a diagnostic immunohistochemi...

Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is the most common endocrine malignancy. Its management has not changed significantly in recent decades, and most patients receive the same treatment. Moreover, there are not alternative treatments for low response or aggressive neoplasias. The availability of reliable prognostic markers that would allow the PTC to be identified based on their aggressiveness at the time of diagnosis would derive in an individualized treatment. In a previous study...