Endocrine Abstracts

Objectives: Endothelial dysfunction has been described as a predictor of cardiovascular complications. Most important cause for early mortality in acromegaly is cardiovascular involvement, cut-off nadir GH <2.5 ng/ml predicting longer survival The aim of our study was to determine the correlations between endothelial dysfunction and GH oversecretion, associated or not with other cardiovascular risk factors.Design and method: Cross-sectional study inc...

Objective: The best biochemical strategy to follow in pheochromocytoma clinical diagnosis.Patients and methods: We selected two groups of patients: 24 pheochromocytomas (further diagnosed by CT): 20 women and 4 men aged 20–68 years and a normotensive group: 100 subjects without endocrine disfunction: 83 women and 17 men aged 19–70 years. In both groups we tested five parameters: plasma normetanephrines/metanephrines (NMNp/MNp); urine normetanep...

Objective: To introduce the best biochemical strategy for carcinoid syndrome diagnosis.Patients and methods: We selected two groups of patients: one group of 75 patients suspected of carcinoid syndrome: 57 women aged between 19 and 78 years and 18 men aged 17–81 years and a 80 healthy subjects group without endocrine disfunction: 56 women aged between 27 and 78 years and 24 men aged 17–81 years. We established median values for all parameters i...

A 50–year-old female with a 2 year-history of hypertension and diabetes was admitted to a county hospital, where treatment with clonidine and beta-blockers was started, without success. Abdominal CT showed a large left adrenal tumour, and her initial blood pressure (BP) was over 300/170 mmHg, which dropped to 80/30 mmHg. She was transferred for evaluation of a possible pheochromocytoma (PHEO). At admission her BP was 260/160 mmHg, heart rate (HR) 120 bpm, with anxiety, di...

Introduction: Phaeochromocytomas (PHEO) are tumours of the chromaffin cells and are usually detected due to the typical symptom triad including headache, palpitations and sweating associated with persistent and/or paroxysmal blood hypertension. An increasing proportion of PHEO is incidentally discovered upon abdominal imaging.Objective: To analyse the clinical characteristics of the incidentally discovered phaeochromocytomas.Method...

Aim: To evaluate the clinical efficacy of androgen replacement therapy with oral or intramuscular (i.m.) testosterone undecanoate (T.U.) in male patients with central hypogonadism.Patients and methods: We retrospectively evaluated 40 patients with hypogonadotropic hypogonadism: 29 with pituitary tumors or craniopharyn-giomas, 11 with non-tumoral hypogonadism (median age 47 years, range 20–62), before and after androgen replacement therapy, with the ...

Pituitary apoplexy is a rare syndrome due to a clinically overt hemorrhagic infarction, described in 2–7% of pituitary adenomas. A subclinical usually asymptomatic pituitary hemorrhage and/or infarction may be detected on routine imaging or during histopathological examination in 25–28% of patients with pituitary adenomas.Aim: We compared the clinical features and evolution of 166 patients with subclinical pituitary apoplexy (SPA) and 46 patien...

Introduction: The current revised medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) guidelines don’t specify reference ranges of basal (bCT) or stimulated serum calcitonin (sCT) levels for the diagnosis of MTC. These are important for early diagnosis and correct management.Objective: We aimed to set gender specific thresholds for bCT and sCT for MTC diagnosis.Patients and methods: CT samples during calcium-stimulation test (2...

Introduction: Thyroid cancer incidence has registered an important increase in the last years. Anaplastic thyroid cancer represent a rare malignancy with an aggressive biological behavior and a high mortality rate.Case presentation: We present the case of a 69-years-old woman who addressed our department for endocrine evaluation in the context of a right latero-cervical lymph nodes, complaining of mixed dysphagia and dyspnea, that developed progressively...

IntroductionPheochromocytomas (PHEO) and paragangliomas (PGL) are rare neuroendocrine tumors of the autonomic nervous system, originating from neural crest. Despite the same embryological origin, there are some differences between them.AimWe searched for differences in method of discovery, clinical and biochemical phenotype, of sporadic vs hereditary PHEO/PGL in a cohort of Flemish patients.<p class="abst...