Endocrine Abstracts

The purpose of this study was to compare bone mineral density (BMD) and bone metabolism in patients suffering from adrogenital syndrome due to deficit of 21-hydroxylase with those of a group of healthy subjects. A longitudinal follow-up was also carried out in a subgroup of patients.Thirty-eight patients 19-47 years old were compared with a group of healthy, age- and sex-matched controls. Sodium, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, parathyroid hormone (PTH),...

Cushing’s disease, i.e. cortisol excess due to an ACTH-secreting pituitary adenoma, is a rare disorder with considerable morbidity and mortality. Current therapeutic strategies include pituitary surgery, radiation, adrenalectomy and medical treatment with steroidogenesis inhibitors, as drugs aimed at the pituitary adenoma are as yet under investigation. Experimental data showed that retinoic acid restrains ACTH secretion by tumoral corticotrophes thus we decided to evalua...

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor interacting protein (AIP) gene is abundantly expressed in normal somatotrophs. Somatotropinomas in patients with germline AIP mutations (AIPmut) are typically more aggressive than non-AIPmut adenomas and associated with higher GH/IGF1 secretion. AIP downregulation may also occur in sporadic somatotropinomas, especially in invasive tumours. We wished to evaluate the impact of somatostatin analogues (SSA) pre-treatment on AIP expression in sporadic ...