Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a very rare and aggressive, endocrine malignancy with still limited treatment options. Approximately 60% of patients with ACC show endogenous glucocorticoid excess which could be one potential cause, why first clinical trials with immunotherapies, like immune checkpoint inhibitors, showed only modest results. Due to the lack of an ACC-specific antigen structure, other immunotherapeutic approaches, like specialized cancer treatments...

Adrenocortical carcinomas (ACC) are associated with heterogeneous prognosis and limited treatment options for advanced stages. Until now no efficient targeted therapies have been identified. This study aims to identify possible new molecular drug targets for a future personalized therapeutic approach. RNA was isolated from 40 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumor samples from ACC patients (26F&14M, median age 46 yrs) with known genetic background (Lippert et al. JCEM ...

Background & Aim: Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (pNETs) are detected in >80% of MEN1 patients. MEN1 pNETs are well differentiated G1-G2 NETs. They are usually not surged unless a size >1–2 cm or a growth rate >0.5 cm per year. Somatostatin analogues represent one of the main therapeutic option in patients affected with G1-G2 NETs. However, neither somatostatin analogues nor other therapies have been prospectively evaluated in clinical trials specificall...

Background: Vitamin D has several ‘noncalcemic’ implications, including effects on cell signaling and differentiation. Patients with gastroenteropancreatic (GEP) neuroendocrine tumors (NET) have an increased risk of vitamin D deficiency, due to the tumor itself, systemic therapies and abdominal surgery. However, data regarding vitamin D status are limited. Aim of this study was to evaluate 25-hydroxy-vitamin-D (25(OH)D) levels in GEP-NET patients and correlated them ...

Mitotane is the only approved drug for the treatment of advanced adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) and we recently demonstrated that a high expression of cytochrome P450 2W1 (CYP2W1) correlated with response to mitotane. The association between CYP2W1 alleles and a generally increased cancer risk is under debate. Aim of the study was to evaluate the frequency of CYP2W1 polymorphisms and its correlation with the response to mitotane treatment in ACC patients.<p class="abstext"...

Background: Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) has a heterogeneous prognosis and current medical therapies have limited efficacy in its advanced stages. Genome-wide multi-omics-studies identified molecular patterns associated with clinical outcome. Here, we aimed at identifying a molecular signature useful for both personalized prognostic stratification and druggable targets, using methods applicable in clinical routine.Methods: 117 tumor samples from 107 AC...

Introduction: Adrenocortical tumours comprise frequent adenomas (ACA) and rare highly malignant carcinoma (ACC). Livin/ML-IAP/BIRC7 is a member of the inhibitors of apoptosis proteins family, which are involved in tumorigenesis, mostly through the inhibition of caspase-3. Aim of the study was to evaluate the expression of livin/BIRC7 in normal and neoplastic adrenal glands.Methods: The mRNA expression of BIRC7, its isoforms livin α...

Introduction: Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare, aggressive tumour with unsatisfactory treatment options in advanced disease. Activation of epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) has been described as causative of metastatic spread in a variety of human cancers. Accordingly, new drugs were developed specifically targeting EMT with a focus on HGF/c-MET and FGF/FGFR signalling. We here asked whether EMT is a relevant mechanism in ACC.Methods: Ex...

ContextThe occurrence of different subtypes of endogenous Cushing’s syndrome (CS) in single individuals is extremely rare. We here present the case of a female patient who was successfully cured from adrenal CS 4 years before being diagnosed with Cushing’s disease (CD).Case DescriptionA 50-year-old female was diagnosed with ACTH-independent CS and a left-sided adrenal adenoma in January 2015. After ...

Context: The occurrence of different subtypes of endogenous Cushing’s syndrome (CS) in single individuals is extremely rare. We here present the case of a female patient who was successfully cured from adrenal CS 4 years before being diagnosed with Cushing&apos;s disease (CD).Case Description: A 50-year-old female was diagnosed with ACTH-independent CS and a left-sided adrenal adenoma in January 2015. After adrenalectomy and histopathological co...