Endocrine Abstracts

The need for thyroid residue ablation in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC), classified with the TNM staging (AJCC, 2002) as pT1, with a maximum diameter comprised between 1 and 2 cm (pT1/1-2) and/or multifocal, is still debated. Aim of this study was to compare the outcome of pT1N0M0 patients submitted or not to postsurgical radioiodine ablation. Consecutive patients followed-up at this Institution from 1996 to 2010 were enrolled. All pT1/1-2N0M0 cases were radioiodine ablated be...

The recent unavailability of pentagastrin (Pg) in several European Countries, prompted us to evaluate the potency and tolerability of the ‘high dose calcium test’ (Ca) in the stimulation of serum human calcitonin (hCt). We compared Pg- and Ca-stimulated hCt in 19 patients already treated for medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) in remission (n=19) or in persistence (n=13), in 18 patients with chronic thyroiditis and multinodular goiter, and in 15 healthy cont...

Incidental thyroid carcinoma (IC) is defined as a tumor diagnosed at histology after surgery for benign diseases and without a preoperative diagnosis of malignancy. Since the prevalence of IC reported in the literature is extremely variable (4.6–17%), mostly due to the limited number of cases, we aimed to study the features of IC in our large series. We retrospectively evaluated 1955 patients who consecutively underwent total thyroidectomy for non malignant diseases from ...

The two regulatory subunits (R1 and R2) of PKA are differentially expressed in several cancer cell lines and studies indicate distinct roles for these subunits in growth control. Recently, mutations of the regulatory subunit 1A of PKA gene have been identified in patients with Carney complex (CNC). The aim of this study was to evaluate the expression of the different PKA regulatory subunits (R1A, R2A, R2B) in adrenocortical tumors not associated with CNC, as well as the effect...

In our previous investigation on microRNAs expression pattern in parathyroid carcinomas (Ca), we detected the over-expression of microRNAs belonging to C19MC, the largest human cluster on chromosome 19q13.41. In the present study, the analysis of the expression of selected C19MC and the closely distal MIR371-3 clusters microRNAs (MIR512-3p, MIR517C, MIR520H and MIR372) was extended to 11 Ca, 24 adenomas (Ad) and 6 normal glands. The four microRNAs was expressed in 11% of parat...

Tumour-associated myofibroblasts are activated fibroblasts known to influence many aspects of tumour development. Parathyroid tumours show increased microvessels and atypical/malignant tumours are characterized by fibrous bands suggesting activation of the stromal cells. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of myofibroblasts in parathyroid tumorigenesis. Human parathyroid tissues were analysed by specific immunostaining for the myofibroblast marker alpha-sm...

The embryonic transcription factor TBX1 plays a critical role in cell differentiation during organogenesis of the parathyroid glands. Here we demonstrated that TBX1 mRNA and protein were detected in human adult normal parathyroid tissues (n=3). Immunostaining showed that TBX1 protein was expressed in endothelial CD31+, alfa-SMA+ cells. By contrast, TBX1 mRNA and protein was expressed at higher levels in parathyroid typical adenomas (n=23), where TBX1 staining was...