Endocrine Abstracts

Premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) is a disorder in which amenorrhea, associated to elevated levels of gonadotropins, occurs before the age of 40 years.The proband, a 36-year-old woman, was born at term after an uneventful pregnancy and delivery from healthy non-consanguineous parents. Growth and mental developmental milestones were normal. At the age of 12 years she presented menarche followed by regular menses, she had no miscarriage and had a succe...

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Pregnant women may require treatment of hypo- or hyperthyroidism, L-thyroxine (LT4), propylthiouralcil (PTU) and methimazole (MMI) being the most frequently used drugs. Aim of this study was to verify the consequences on both the mother and the fetus of pharmacological treatment during pregnancy. We retrospectively evaluated 292 pregnancies: 63 patients under MMI treatment, 8 of whom (7 Graves’ (GD) and 1 toxic nodular goiter) still hyperthyroid in spite of treatment (H-M...

In pregnant women with thyroid diseases an increased amount of LT4 may be required for the correction of hypothyroidism or treatment of nodular goiter. Aim of this study was to assess the amount of the variations of LT4 requirement in pregnant women with thyroid diseases. To address this issue, we retrospectively evaluated a cohort of 107 women treated with LT4 divided in two groups: 42 euthyroid (E) (affected by nodular goiter (NG) treated with LT4 suppressive therapy) and 65...

Background: Nonautoimmune subclinical hypothyroidism is characterized by elevated serum levels of TSH in the presence of normal thyroid hormone levels and absence of anti-thyroid antibodies. As a result of a genomic-wide study, a strong association between three polymorphic variants in exon 1 of human phosphodiesterase 8B (PDE8B) gene (rs4704397, rs6885099 e rs2046045) and serum levels of TSH has been recently reported. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the frequenc...

Hypogonadism is still a poorly-defined clinical entity. Recently approved and published guidelines to diagnosis and treatment of hypogonadism claim the necessity of accompanying biochemical thresholds with clinical symptoms and monitoring under treatment a specific aspect of the ‘wide spectrum’ hypogonadism (libido, erection, bone mass, muscle strength and so on). This is due both to different levels of thresholds for different tissues and to individual variability.<...

Radioiodine-131 is commonly used for treatment of hyperthyroidism, however the effects on testis function are not known. This prompted us to study testis function in hyperthyroid men after 131I treatment. 15 hyperthyroid patients scheduled for 131I treatment underwent: testis US, hormone assessment and sperm analysis before and 45 days, 3, 6 and 10–15 months after 131I. The control group (for testis volume and semen analysis) was constitut...

Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is the most common endocrine disorder in women of reproductive age often associated with insulin resistance, diabetes mellitus, hyperandrogenism, dislipidemia, obesity and hypertension, pathological conditions predisposing to high cardiovascular risk. Insulin resistant subjects may have higher plasma renin activity and it is well known that aldosterone plays a well-recognized role in the pathophysiology of hypertension and in the development of...

Congenital hypothyroidism (CH) with a normal located thyroid gland may be transient or permanent and environmental, iatrogenic, immunologic or genetic factors can be involved. PAX-8, TSH receptor and THOX2 gene mutations have been identified in cases of CH with a gland of normal size.In this study we performed genetic analysis of PAX8, TSH receptor and THOX2 genes in 14 children with CH and a normal sized eutopic gland. Genomic DNA was extracted from lym...

Aim of the study was to evaluate whether clinical parameters and echographic patterns may be predictive of malignancy in thyroid nodules with a cytological diagnosis of follicular (FOL) and H?rthle cell (HC) neoplasia. The study included 495 patients (388 F: mean age 45±14 yr; 107 M: mean age 46±14 yr) with FOL (n=418) and CH (n=77) nodules, ‘cold’ at scintiscan and undergone to thyroidectomy. Clinical parameters considered were: sex, age, goi...