Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Purpose of this study is to find a radiological score and to correlate radiological characteristics of adrenal adenomas and functional parameters to predict subclinical glucocorticoid secretion.Methods and materials: This retrospective study included 55 patients with adenomas, investigated through CT with adrenal protocol assessing diameters, HU values of the unenhanced and contrast enhanced phases (enhanced–E, and 15 min delayed enhan...

Steroid profiling by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) offers an accurate and simultaneous detection of a panel of steroids with several advantages over traditional assays. However, only a few studies have investigated the steroid profiling in sporadic adrenocortical adenomas. Our aim was therefore to investigate steroid secretion by LC–MS/MS in patients with non-secreting adrenocortical adenomas (NSA) and subclinical hypercortisolism (SH...

Hyperandrogenic disorders cause psychological implication in young girls, limiting the quality of life. Salivary cortisol (SalF) testing was proved to be useful in the evaluations of acute stress responses. Aim of this study was to investigate SalF responses to a stressor event in late adolescent females. We selected 165 drug-free females aged 16–19 years from a cross-sectional epidemiological study. Saliva was collected in the morning before and after a stressor event co...

Introduction: The relationship between food intake and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis has been studied in the development of visceral adiposity and obesity. The HPA axis may interact with the reward system, thus influencing food choices. On the other hand, it has been shown that macronutrients differently modulate the HPA axis activity.The aim of this study was to evaluate the dietary habits in subjects with adrenal masses (adenoma o...

Introduction: Women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) are considered to have increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), even though the syndrome encompasses hugely varying phenotypes. Research into CVD prevention demonstrated a variety of biochemical and ultrasound (US) markers predicting risk in the general population, but those are sparsely utilised for PCOS, in part due to the patients’ therapeutic goals.Aim: To evaluate if PCOS type or...

Background: Deciding whether patients with a cytologically indeterminate thyroid nodule should be referred for surgery or for active surveillance is an important challenge for clinicians. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of a novel dual-component molecular assay as an ancillary molecular method for resolving indeterminate thyroid nodule cytology.Methods: We selected 156 thyroid nodules from those that had undergone both FNA cytology ...

Progesterone (PRG) deficiency has been linked to an increased risk of cancer, while normal levels of PRG in the body actually help protect you against some forms of cancer. The tumor suppressor role of this steroid was envisaged, however the mechanism through which this occurs was not clearly established. The effects of progesterone act via the progesterone receptor (PR) of which two isoforms, called A (PR-A) and B (PR-B) were discovered. Herein, we present a novel finding sin...

Varicocele and diabetes mellitus (DM) have long been recognized to impair male fertility by interfering with both sperm parameters and production, however the molecular mechanism by which these effects occur remains largely unknown. Cyclooxygenases are important in spermatogenesis, but their ultrastructural localization in sperm cells and their role in male infertility have not yet established in humans. In the present study we presented the evidence of constitutive (COX-1) an...

Sperm energy management is poorly studied and understood. The present study provides biochemical and morphological evidence that ejaculated human sperm express the mitochondrial citrate carrier (CIC) which is restricted to the midpiece. CIC inhibition by the specific substrate analogue 1,2,3-benzenetricarboxylate (BTA) reduced cholesterol efflux, proteins tyrosine phosphorylation, P-AKT, P-P60src addressing to its functional role in sperm acquisition of fe...

Objective: The metabolic syndrome (MS) is characterized by a marked sympathetic activation. Whether this adrenergic overdrive is mainly dependent on the obese state or it can be detected also in absence of obesity is unknown, however.Design and Methods: In 25 male patients (age 41.4±yrs., mean±S.E.M.) with MS (ATP III criteria) and in 12 age-matched healthy male controls, we measured body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC...