Endocrine Abstracts

Teriparatide is a skeletal anabolic drug that represents the first and new class of bone anabolic agents able to increase bone formation, bone mineral density and strength. Several studies demonstrated the efficacy of this drug in post-menopausal and glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis, but few data are available on the effects of the drug in long-term therapy in humans, so far.We analyzed a population of 135 women in post-menopausal age treated with ter...

The worldwide incidence of thyroid cancer has been increasing during the last years and is a public health concern because treatment of thyroid cancer implies high health costs and may raise overtreatment issues. On the other hand, effective medical treatment for advanced disease escaping radiometabolic treatment and not amenable for surgical approach is still lacking. Current methods of detection, decision making, prognostic indications, and monitoring rely on clinical, morph...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have several physiological functions, but have been also implicated in human neoplastic initiation and progression. We previously demonstrated that 30 miRNAs are differentially expressed in normal human pituitary as compared to pituitary adenomas. However, the most of miRNAs target genes remain unknown, hindering the understanding of the miRNAs contribute to pituitary tumorigenesis.The aims of this study were to: (i) validate a murine ...

Context: GH and insulin-like growth factor (IGF1) play important roles in breast cancer (BC) development. IGF1 has been shown to importantly influence estrogen effects on BC, suggesting that estrogen receptors (ER) may mediate also GH effects. We previously demonstrated that GH and IGF1 protect the ER positive BC-derived MCF7 cell line towards the cytotoxic effects of doxorubicin (D), independently of IGF1.Aim of the study: Evaluate whether this holds tr...

Tolvaptan, an oral antagonist of the vasopressin V2 receptor, has been found to improve hyponatremia in patients with SIAD. We report the case of a 65-years-old male, who developed recurrent episodes of hyponatremia after severe traumatic brain injury, TBI, with polytrauma (CGS=8, decompressive craniectomy, spontaneous breathing by percutaneous tracheotomy). During hospitalization in intensive care unit he resumed alertness and received i.v. hypertonic saline infusion and oral...

Introduction: The main therapeutic approach for non functioning pituitary adenomas (NFA) is surgery, since radiotherapy has several important side effects and medical therapy is rarely effective. Therefore, understanding the molecular pathways regulating NFA cell proliferation is crucial for future drug development. We here explore the possible role of mTOR inhibitors, Everolimus and BEZ235 (which also inhibits the PI3 K pathway) on the effects of Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 ...

Introduction: It has been demonstrated that mTOR inhibitors have potent anti-proliferative effects in a human Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma (MTC) cell lines. We here explore the possible role of mTOR inhibitors, Everolimus and BEZ235 (which also inhibits the PI3K pathway) on the effects of Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1) in human MTC primary cultures.Aims: To this purpose, 20 MTCs primary cultures, were treated without or with 1 uM Everolimus, 10 nM B...

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC), a rare tumor, with incidence of 1–2 per million population annually, has a bimodal distribution by age, with cases clustering in children under 6, and in adults 30–40 years old. ACC has a dismal prognosis. The only curative treatment is complete surgical excision of the tumor, but late diagnosis prevents surgical cure, since ACC frequently recurs and metastasize. Chemotherapy is frequently ineffective, due to the overexpression of the ...

The currently curative therapy for pancreatic endocrine tumours (PET), accounting for <3% of pancreatic tumors, is complete surgical resection, which is achieved in the minority of cases. Most tumors are diagnosed in a late stage, especially in endocrine-inactive forms, indicating the need for further medical therapy. The serine–threonine protein kinase C (PKC) family plays central regulatory roles in several cellular processes, including cell proliferation. PKC signa...

Overt hypercortisolism causes reduction in bone mass and density. The effects of subclinical Cushing’s syndrome (SCS) on bone markers and structure are still debated. We therefore studied 56 patients with adrenal incidentaloma: group A=35 (20 F 15 M, age 43–79, mean 64.6±1.5; BMI 29.9±0.9 kg/m2) without evidence of hypercortisolism, and group B=21 (10 F 11 M, age 51–76, mean 63.4±1.9, BMI 28.0±1.2 kg/m2) with SCS (i.e. w...