Endocrine Abstracts

Pituitary adenomas account for ~10% of intracranial tumors and result in morbidity due to both altered hormonal patterns as well as side effects of therapy. Currently, great attention has been given to preventive strategies, and in this context, the use of functional foods with chemopreventive compounds appears to contribute much in this process. Among these substances, we highlight the consumption of carotenoids is associated with reduced risk of chronic diseases including ca...

Introduction: Compared to ethnically European men, Pakistani origin men living in the UK have a lower circulating total and free testosterone level, corresponding with greater central adiposity and higher insulin resistance. Within a South Asian group we have now examined the effect of migration to the UK on male testosterone level.Methods: Circulating testosterone concentration was measured by automated immunoassay in 97 Gujarati males resident in India...

Endometriosis is a common gynaecological disease associated with severe pelvic pain and sub-fertility. We conducted a genome-wide association (GWA) study in 3,194 surgically confirmed endometriosis cases and 7060 controls of European ancestry from Australia and the UK using 540,000 genetic markers (SNPs). Polygenic predictive modelling showed significantly increased genetic loading among the 1364 (43%) cases with moderate-severe (rAFS III/IV) endometriosis. The strongest assoc...

BackgroundIncreasing incidence of thyroid cancer together with improved prognosis raises a concern regarding development of second primary cancers. Moreover, little is known about the incidence of thyroid cancer as a second primary neoplasm after other cancers.MethodsA cohort of 39002 people (356034.5 person years) with primary thyroid cancer was identified in 13 population-based cancer registries in Europe, ...

Background: Primary aldosteronism (PA) is the most common potentially curable cause of secondary hypertension and is a risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. For patients with unilateral disease adrenalectomy can be curative. However, PA remains substantially underdiagnosed due the complex diagnostic pathway required to identify patients with unilateral disease, and the difficulties in accurate lateralization of the affected adrenal gland. Spe...

Background: Lower cut-offs in TSH screening have doubled the incidence of congenital hypothyroidism (CH), particularly cases with an eutopically-located Gland-in-situ (GIS). Although mutations in known dyshormonogenesis genes, or the thyrotropin-stimulating hormone receptor (TSHR) may underlie such cases, these genes have not previously been screened comprehensively in a GIS CH cohort.Study design: We evaluated the relative contribution and mole...

Hilary Critchley, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK AbstractHilary Critchley is Professor of Reproductive Medicine (Personal Chair awarded 1999) at the University of Edinburgh and clinical Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh.She graduated in medicine from the University of Manchester. Her research training was undertaken with Professor David Baird (Edin...

Background: Patients with small bowel neuroendocrine tumors (SBNETs) frequently present with metastatic disease, and unfortunately, the range and efficacy of available therapies is limited. Immunotherapeutic checkpoint inhibitors have demonstrated benefit in other malignancies and may also play a role in SBNETs, although relatively little is known about the immune infiltrate in these tumors. Toward a goal of developing novel immunomodulatory strategies, we sought to evaluate t...

J J Kopchick, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, USA. AbstractDr John J Kopchick is an internationally recognized leader in the growth hormone (GH) field. Since 1987, he has held the Milton and Lawrence H Goll Eminent Scholar Professorship in Molecular and Cellular Biology and directs the Growth/Obesity/Diabetes Section of the Edison Biotechnology Institute at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. He also is Professor in the B...

Gerard Karsenty, Professor and Chairman, Department of Genetics & Development, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, USA AbstractGerard Karsenty received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Paris, France and completed his post-doctoral training at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in 1990.His laboratory has studied every aspect of skeletal biology ranging f...