Endocrine Abstracts

Hyperinsulinemia has been associated to an increased risk of colorectal cancer and adenomas, while higher serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D3 and folate seem to reduce the development of colonic lesions in general population. Acromegalic patients have an increased risk of colonic tumors and an association between higher fasting insulin levels and risk of colonic adenomas has been previously demonstrated. No data are available about the influence of vitamin D and folate-homocysteine le...

Thyroid hormone resistance (THR) and pituitary TSH-secreting adenomas (TSHoma) are both characterised by increased serum free thyroid hormone levels and normal TSH concentrations. Differentiation of the two syndromes is a clinical challenge, and relies on the suppression (TRH) or lack of suppression (TSHoma) of TSH-dependent parameters and on the presence of germinal mutations in the thyroid hormone receptor beta 1 gene in patients with THR. Thyroid blood flow, evaluated using...

Active acromegaly is associated with significant comorbidity and reduced quality of life. Cross-sectional studies have shown that quality of life did not significantly change in long-term cured acromegalic patients. However, the effect of medical treatment on the quality of life in the short term is unknown.We evaluated the quality of life by a disease-specific questionnaire in a longitudinal study before and after a 6-month course with somatostatin anal...

To investigate the blood pressure profile (BP) in active acromegaly and the effect of medical treatment of acromegaly on BP circadian rhythm, we studied 21 acromegalics before and after 3–60 months of treatment with somatostatin analogs (15/21) or pegvisomant (5/21) or both (5/21). Ambulatory 24-h BP was recorded. The 24-h mean BP (MBP), the mean systolic BP (SBP) and diastolic BP (DBP), the day-time (day) and night-time (night) MBP, SBP and DBP and the 24-h mean heart ra...

Introduction: Acromegaly is associated with alterations of glucose metabolism. The effect of somatostatin analogues (SMS) and pegvisomant (PEG) on glucose metabolism is still argument of debate.Study design: The purpose of this historical-prospective study was to compare, in a cohort of 47 patients with active acromegaly, the effects of SMS and PEG alone or in combination on glucose metabolism. All subjects were evaluated at baseline and at least 6 month...

Prolactin-secreting (PRL) adenomas are about 40% of all pituitary adenomas. The most important clinical symptoms of PRL excess are gonadal and sexual dysfunction as a result of tumor expansion in patients with macroadenomas. Medical therapy of prolactinomas relies on the use of dopamine agonists which induce normalization of PRL levels and shrinkage of the tumor mass in the majority of patients. The present study evaluated whether doses of dopamine agonist inducing normalizati...