Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Neuroendocrine tumours (NET) are rare cancers arising from cells of the neuroendocrine system and frequently present with advanced disease. They are characterised by the presence of somatostatin receptors (SSTR) on the tumour surface. The presence of SSTR are associated with the inhibition of NET proliferation and have formed the basis of peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT), such as Lutathera. PRRT relies on SSTR tumour expression and patients without this...

Phaeochromocytomas are rare neuroendocrine tumours. Prediction of aggressive tumour behaviour remains a major challenge. We report a 68-year-old female who was found to have a locally arising colonic adenocarcinoma on biopsies. Staging also identified a 10.7 cm right adrenal lesion and work-up revealed markedly raised urinary metanephrines and positive MIBG imaging. The MDT decision was to first remove the colonic cancer with appropriate alpha blockade. It was felt that a comb...

We report a new diagnosis of a pituitary TSH-oma together with a metastaticneuroendocrine tumour. A 61 year old man presented with a 3-year history of diarrhoea. His past medical history includes paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, for which he has had an ablation in the past. He takes no regular medications. Initial investigations were suggestive of hyperthyroidism in the context of unusual thyroid function test results (elevated freeT4 and freeT3 with elevated TSH). A pituitary ...

Backgeound and Aims: Phaeochromocytomas (PCC) and paragangliomas (PGL) are mostly benign sympathoadrenal tumours. However, there are no available markers to predict a malignant course. Since hypoxia is involved in the pathogenesis of these tumours, we aimed to qualify the relevance of the mammalian Target of Rapamycin (m-TOR) and hypoxic pathways in benign and malignant PCC/PGL.Methods: Tissue microarray (TMA) blocks were constructed with 80 PCC/PGL, inc...

Background and Aims: Phaeochromocytoma and paragangliomas are neuroendocrine tumours arising from chromaffin cells. These tumours express somatostatin receptors (SSTRs), which has five different main subtypes (SSTR1, SSTR2, SSTR3, SSTR4 and SSTR5). The differential expression of the different receptor subtypes in these tumours has previously been reported with a small series of tumour samples. Our study examined the expression of SSTR subtypes in a larger series of benign and ...