Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Dopamine agonists (DA) are the first-line treatment for macroprolactinomas. However, up to 10% of patients fail to respond to medical therapy.Aim: To assess biochemical resistance rate to DA treatment in a large series of patients with macroprolactinoma and to analyze possibilities to overcome this resistance.Patients and methods: 195 patients with macroprolactinomas, treated with DA for at least 2 years, were retrospec...

Introduction: The incidence of parathyroid carcinoma in primary hyperparathyroidism is less than 1% and the association with ACTH-independent Cushing syndrome is very rare.Case report: A 40-year-old female was admitted for weight gain and reddish-purple striae. One month earlier she had a ¾ parathyroidectomy for primary hyperparathyroidism with histopathological examination showing a parathyroid carcinoma and two parathyroid adenomas. She also had a...

Objective: Patients with pituitary macroadenomas and concomitant hypopituitarism have a reduced life expectancy due to various comorbidities.Aim: To investigate mortality in patients with non-functioning pituitary adenomas (NFAs) and independent prognostic factors influencing survival.Design: Retrospective cohort study in a tertiary neuroendocrine university department.Methods: A total of 364 patients (177F/1...

Background: Active acromegaly is characterized by decreased insulin sensitivity (ISen). However, insulin secretion (ISec) may not increase satisfactorily to compensate for the low ISen.Aim: To assess ISen and ISec and to calculate disposition index (DI) using an intravenous glucose tolerance test (IVGTT) in patients with active acromegaly.Methods: Twelve patients (7 men, 5 women) with active acromegaly and 2 normal subjects (2 men)...

Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) is a rare neuroendocrine tumor derived from the thyroid C cells producing calcitonin, ac-counts for 0.6% of all thyroid cancers. It occurs either sporadically or in a hereditary form (RET mutation). MTC can be cured only by complete resection of the thyroid tumor and any loco-regional metastases. Calcitonin (CT) measurement is crucial to the early diagnosis and the follow-up of MTC. If the evaluation of stimulated CT levels is required, a prov...

Aim: Somatic growth results from the generation of new support and connective tissue. Since collagen is the major protein constituent of connective tissue, its synthesis must be a prerequisite for the normal growth. The aim of the study was to determine age-related reference intervals for P3NP, a collagen – formation marker in a group of normal height prepubertal children and to compare to IGF1 levels.Subjects: Forty-three prepubertal children, male...

Background: Screening for primary aldosteronism (PA) needs aldosterone-to-renin ratio (ARR) measurement, followed by confirmative tests.Aim: To assess the clinical value of captopril challenge test (CCT) in PA diagnosis.Methods: Thirty patients were screened for secondary endocrine hypertension; study group consisted in 15 PA patients (7M/8F, aged 44.6±13.3 years). Control group consisted in 15 patients (5M/10F) with negative ...

Introduction: Primary aldosteronism is associated with increased prevalence of cardiometabolic complications. The mechanisms are not fully elucidated, but an association with autonomous cortisol secretion could increase vascular and metabolic risk.Aims: To assess glucocorticoid axis in patients with primary aldosteronism as compared to patients with ACTH-independent Cushing syndrome and control hypertensive patients without gluco or mineralocorticoid exc...

Neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1) is a rare disease determined by mutations in the RAS-MAPK pathway. It can cause precocious or delayed puberty.Case 1: A 11 years 9 months old girl known with Neurofibromatosis – Noonan Syndrome (NF-NS) was admitted for severe growth deficit (-5.14 SDS). She had over 20 café au lait spots, hypertelorism, pterigium colli, B1 P1. At 18 months she had had surgery for pulmonary stenosis and after that a left ventricular tum...

Introduction: BRAF V600E mutation is reported to occur in 28–83% of papillary thyroid cancer, being associated with increased tumour aggressiveness.Objective: To determine the prevalence of BRAF V600E mutation in Romanian patients with thyroid nodules referred to surgery in a reference endocrinology centre.Materials and methods: 140 patients were included in the study: 70 patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), 42 pat...