Endocrine Abstracts

Lymphocytic adenohypophysitis (LA) is a rare inflammatory disorder of the pituitary, probably auto-immune in origin, usually affecting young pregnant women. Clinical features resemble a pituitary adenoma but differing in the hierarchy of endocrine loss, preferentially destroying ACTH and TSH secreting cells. A useful diagnostic feature is pituitary enhancement with gadolinium on MRI.A 39-year old female, with treated hypothyroidism, was referred to endocrinology out-patien...

Introduction: The main therapeutic approach for non functioning pituitary adenomas (NFA) is surgery, since radiotherapy has several important side effects and medical therapy is rarely effective. Therefore, understanding the molecular pathways regulating NFA cell proliferation is crucial for future drug development. We here explore the possible role of mTOR inhibitors, Everolimus and BEZ235 (which also inhibits the PI3 K pathway) on the effects of Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 ...

Introduction: It has been demonstrated that mTOR inhibitors have potent anti-proliferative effects in a human Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma (MTC) cell lines. We here explore the possible role of mTOR inhibitors, Everolimus and BEZ235 (which also inhibits the PI3K pathway) on the effects of Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1) in human MTC primary cultures.Aims: To this purpose, 20 MTCs primary cultures, were treated without or with 1 uM Everolimus, 10 nM B...

Background: β-thalassemia is associated with increased iron overload in endocrine tissues, including parathyroid glands. The occurrence of unbalanced calcium (Ca)-phosphorous (P) metabolism, such as chronic HPT, is higher in these patients compared to the general population. However, data about prevalence and presentation of HPT in this setting are scanty.Aim: To explore the biochemical characteristics of Ca-P metabolism, particularly the prevalence...

Background: Erectile dysfunction (ED) is the most frequent sexual disorder. Although psychological ED (pED) is the most frequent form, vascular ED (vED) is associated with 1.25 times greater risk of developing major cardiovascular diseases. Alongside cardiovascular aspect, the evaluation of patients’ health, measured by the comorbidities number, in relation to the ED aetiology has never been investigated so far.Objectives: To explore the potential r...

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...