Endocrine Abstracts

Graves’ disease (GD) and gestational transient thyrotoxicosis (GTT) are the main causes of hyperthyroidism in pregnancy, their prevalence ranging between 0.1–0.4% and 0.3–11%, respectively.Aim of the study: To evaluate both prevalence and outcome of gestational hyperthyroidism in mild to moderate ID areas.Subjects and methods: 482 consecutive pregnant women who had never undergone thyroid function evaluation before a...

Both hyper- and hypothyroidism show reduced spontaneous and GHRH-stimulated GH secretion. Although impaired GHRH secretion and activity as well as reduced GH pituitary synthesis have been reported in these pathological conditions, a definitive description of the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms have not been provided yet. Ghrelin elicits a potent GH-releasing effect partially mediated by a functional somatostatin antagonism and a synergic interaction with GHRH. Moreove...

Despite the common clinical opinion that thyrotoxicosis is associated with quantitative and qualitative sleep alterations, at present, an objective evaluation of sleep quality and quantity in this clinical condition has never been performed so far. Based on this foregoing, in order to perform a qualitative and quantitative description of sleep in this clinical condition, we enrolled 6 normal-weighted patients suffering from naïve overt hyperthyroidism due to Basedow Disea...

The most common cause of a mass lesion in the sella is pituitary adenoma. Some parasellar lesions may be cystic and sometimes may mimic the clinical and radiological features of pituitary adenoma. A 36 year-old woman was admitted to the hospital because of headache for five years and amenorrhoea for five months. Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of the pituitary gland showed sellar mass lesion characterized by high signal intensity on T1 and T2-weighted images. Endocrinological ...

Berardinelli-Seip syndrome is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by generalized lipoatrophy, extreme insulin resistance with dyslipidaemia in childhood and development of diabetes and hepatic steatosis in adolescence. The metabolic derangements can be severe and lead to substantial comorbidities, including acute pancreatitis, hepatic cirrhosis, and premature cardiovascular disease. Other manifestations can include polycystic ovarian syndrome, acanthosis nigricans, a...

Cushing’s disease, i.e. cortisol excess due to an ACTH-secreting pituitary adenoma, is a rare disorder with considerable morbidity and mortality. Current therapeutic strategies include pituitary surgery, radiation, adrenalectomy and medical treatment with steroidogenesis inhibitors, as drugs aimed at the pituitary adenoma are as yet under investigation. Experimental data showed that retinoic acid restrains ACTH secretion by tumoral corticotrophes thus we decided to evalua...

There is evidence for a strong association between Cushing’s syndrome, characterized by a cluster of systemic complications, and increased cardiovascular risk. To our knowledge, coronary circulatory function has not been explored in Cushing’s syndrome. The aim of the study was to evaluate coronary flow reserve (CFR), an index of coronary microvascular function, in patients with Cushing’s syndrome. Thirteen newly diagnosed patients with Cushing’s syndrome (1...

Introduction: Acromegaly is a systemic disease frequently characterized by hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, endothelial dysfunction and diseases classically associated with an increased incidence of erectile dysfunction (ED) (hypertension, dyslipidemia, impaired glucose metabolism) and premature ejaculation (prostatic disease). Furthermore, the high prevalence of ED may negatively affect ejaculatory function. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ejaculatory function of ...

Introduction: Acromegaly is frequently characterized by hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, endothelial dysfunction, hypertension and impaired glucose and lipid metabolism, classically associated with impaired sexual function (SF). There are no literature data on the SF in acromegaly. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the SF of patients with acromegaly.Patients and methods: Twenty-two patients (47.8±8.6 years) were enrolled into the study. Among ...

The prevalence of differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC) in lingual thyroid (LT) and thyroglossal duct cysts (TDC) is around 1%. Nowadays, almost 200 cases of DTC were reported in TDC and <60 cases in LT. Here we report four cases of neoplasia in LT (1/4) and TDC (3/4) in a consecutive series of 950 DTC patients (0.4%).Case 1: D.F. 63 year-old woman with thyroid follicular carcinoma in ectopic gland located at her tongue’s basis. March 2009: the...