Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: To assess improvement in glycemic control in those diabetic patients who have received structured education in diabetes in our Day Hospital.Methods: A retrospective observational study was carried out in which 42 diabetic patients who had attended to educational courses in 1 year were included, determining the age of the patient, type of Diabetes, score obtained in the questionnaires at the beginning and end of the course, as well as HbA1c bef...

Background: In a previous publication we identified the major predictive factors of levothyroxine (LT4) requirement and proposed an efficient nomogram to calculate LT4 substitutive starting dose after total thyroidectomy for benign disease. The aim of this study was to assess whether the LT4 requirement differs between the tablet and the soft gel capsules formulations.Methods: One hundred and three consecutive patients su...

PATZ1, a member of the POZ-ZF protein family of transcription factors is emerging as an important cancer-associated factor that can act either as oncogene or tumour-suppressor depending on the cellular context. Consistent with a tumour-suppressor role in thyroid cells, we have shown that PATZ1 is highly downregulated in anaplastic thyroid carcinomas compared to normal thyroid tissue and is a powerful inhibitor of anaplastic thyroid cancer cell survival, migration, invasiveness...

Introduction: The presence of truncated variant of somatostatin receptors (SSTR) has been demonstrated in pituitary tumours. These variants seems act as dominant negative of SSTR and induce the resistance to SST analogue (SSTA) treatment. A variant of SSTR5, sst5TMD4, has been found to disrupt SST signalling in breast cancer cells. In present study, we assayed the expression of sst5TMD4 in two non-transformed epithelial prostate cell lines (EPC): EPN, derived from a normal sur...

Introduction: Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare, but highly malignant endocrine tumor. Surgery is the primary choice of treatment. In case of inoperable disease or tumor recurrence, therapy with the adrenolytic drug mitotane is usually applied. Plasma mitotane concentrations of >14 mg/l (50 μM) seem required for an effect on tumor mass. Despite its clinical use, the effects of mitotane on cell proliferation and hormone production have been poorly investigated <...

The dopamine agonist cabergoline has been found to be effective in inducing normalization of cortisol secretion in 25–50% of patients with Cushing’s disease after long-term treatment. Moreover, tumor shrinkage have been documented in selected patients with pituitary corticotroph tumors. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of cabergoline withdrawal in patients with a stable normalization of cortisol secretion and stable or absent visualization of p...

Introduction: Three peptides, acylated ghrelin (AG), unacylated ghrelin (UAG) and obestatin are derived from a common prohormone, preproghrelin by posttranslational processing, originating from endocrine cells in the stomach. Circulating ghrelin levels are decreased in obese subjects and increased by fasting and in patients with anorexia nervosa, but the physiological role of the three peptides is poorly understood in particular in childhood.Aim: In orde...

Subclinical Cushing’s syndrome (SCS) is a mild autonomous cortisol hypersecretion without specific clinical syndrome of glucocorticoid excess. The aim of this study was to compare cardiac structure and function in patients with adrenal incidentaloma. Twenty patients and 20 sex- and age-matched healthy controls entered the study: among patients, 11 had SCS and the remaining nine had normal cortisol secretion All patients and controls were submitted to Doppler echocardiogra...

The first-line treatment of Cushing’s disease is surgery, although it is effective in inducing a long-term remission in around 50% of patients with Cushing’s disease (CD). Nowadays, no pituitary tumor-directed medical treatment is available with the exception of cabergoline, which has been recently demonstrated to control cortisol secretion without major side effects in around 40% of patients with Cushing’s disease. Cabergoline has been recently demonstrated to ...

Objective: To evaluate the results of the early postoperative low-dose (1 μg) ACTH (adrenocorticotropin) stimulation test in patients with Cushing’s disease (CD) in order to predict long-term outcome of transsphenoidal surgery.Methods: We reviewed the serum cortisol response to 1 μg synthetic ACTH (1–24) in the second week after pituitary surgery in 40 patients with Cushing’s disease. Median follow-up was 48.5 months (range 6&#15...