Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Hypoparathyroidism (HypoPT) is a rare endocrine disease which is characterized by hypocalcaemia and undetectable or inappropriately low serum parathyroid hormone (PTH). Post-surgical HypoPT (PS-HypoPT) is the most common cause, caused by accidental parathyroid removal/injury during neck surgery. Conventional therapy with calcium and vitamin D analogues does not restore calcium homeostasis and patients with chronic PS-HypoPT complain with several complications. Fr...

Background: Osteoporosis is characterized by reduced bone mass and a compromised bone microstructure, leading to increased bone fragility and fracture risk. Currently, the gold standard for diagnosis is the bone mineral density (BMD) measurement by DXA. However, approximately half of fragility fractures occurs in the context of normal or slightly decreased BMD values.Protocol: In this cross-sectional study, we performed an artificial intelligence (AI)-ba...

Background: Hyponatremia is highly prevalent in patients with COVID-19. One of the most common causes of hyponatremia in these patients is the syndrome of inadequate antidiuresis (SIAD). Interleukin 6 (IL-6) is a key mediator of inflammation in COVID-19. We hypothesized that hyponatremia in COVID-19 is due to IL-6 mediated non-osmotic arginine vasopressin (AVP) secretion, and that the inverse association between IL-6 and plasma sodium concentration is stronger in COVID-19 comp...

Introduction: First-generation SRL (fg-SRL) represent the treatment of choice in acromegaly patients with post-neurosurgical adenomatous remnant and GH-hypersecretion. Anyway, approximately 60% of patients do not achieve adequate disease control. The main predictors of resistance include male sex, young age, invasiveness of the lesion and its hyperintensity on T2-weighted MRI scans; but also, SSTR2 expression, the cytokeratin pattern, Ki-67 and the presence of AIP gene mutatio...

Aim: To evaluate: 1) clinical and epidemiological characteristics of outpatients transitioned from Pediatrics Endocrine (PED) to Adult Endocrine Department (AED) in a tertiary Centre; 2) transition process characteristics, and predictive factors of drop-out.Patients and methods: Demographic, clinical, and transition features of 170 consecutive patients with paediatric onset of chronic endocrine or metabolic disease (excluded type 1 diabetes) who transiti...

Background: The COVID-19 outbreak in Italy forced the health system to cancel all non-urgent outpatient activities, to avoid further spreading of the disease inside the healthcare facilities. At our institution, for cancer patients the hospital allowed treatments and consultations: the medical team, however, identified patients whose procedures could be postponed. Even after May 2020, the capacity for non-urgent thyroid surgeries was reduced. These events enhanced our efforts ...

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can involve multiple organs and systems, including the endocrine system. In particular, thyroid dysfunctions are frequently seen in COVID-19 patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate thyroid function in hospitalized COVID-19 patients and to correlate thyroid function with inflammatory status, blood count parameters and mortality.Materials and methods: Data of COVID-19 patients admitted to the hosp...

Aim: The uncertainty on the management of small adrenal incidentalomas (AIs) in guidelines still represents a challenge in real clinical practice. The aim of the study was to identify risk factors for morphological or functional changes during follow-up by using clinical, radiological, and pathological features.Methods: We retrospectively evaluated demographic (gender and age at diagnosis), clinical (weight, height, body mass index, smoking habit, comorb...

Introduction: Mitochondrial uncoupling proteins (UCPs) are channel proteins present in the mitochondrial inner membrane which are responsible for the transport of protons between the mitochondrial intermembrane space and the matrix. Currently, six UCP homologues had been identified (UCP1-6). UCPs are major regulators of reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, general cellular redox state and metabolism. UCPs also exhibit specific functions, such as UCP1 and thermogenesis or ...

Background and Aims: Graves’ disease (GD) and orbitopathy (GO) are characterised by the presence of pathological anti-thyrotropin receptor antibodies. In thyroid autoimmunity, especially GD and GO, a dysregulation of several T cell subpopulations has been proposed, especially T regulatory (Treg) and T helper 17 (Th17) cells, determining (auto)immunity inhibition and enhancement, respectively. T follicular cells (Tf) within germinal centres (GC: aggregates of lymphocytes w...