Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Acromegalic heart disease is characterized by concentric left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy and impaired LV function. Speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) allows a non-invasive and reproducible study of myocardial strain, a marker of cardiac deformability and early ventricular systolic dysfunction.Objectives: The aims of the study are: 1) evaluation of STE parameters in acromegalic patients at diagnosis and during the follow-up; 2) apprai...

Low levels of testosterone and SHBG levels are often present in subjects with overweight and obesity; functional hypogonadism further alters the metabolic balance and may drag subjects in a sort of vicious cycle, reducing exercise and energy expenditure. The very low-calorie ketogenic diet (VLCKD) has been reported to rapidly reduce body weight, glycaemia and insulinemia, but its effects on total testosterone (TT) and SHBG levels are less clear. We thus aimed to evaluate the r...

Hypocalcemia has been recently identified as a major biochemical distinctive feature of COVID-19, predicting poor clinical outcomes. Besides the calcium-dependent viral mechanisms of action and the enhanced cellular permeability to calcium ions, we previously hypothesized that hypovitaminosis-D could be a predisposing factor to hypocalcemia. Actually, high prevalence of vitamin D (VD) deficiency in COVID-19 patients (pts) was reported by several studies, but, to date, only few...

Background: Ultrasound guided minimally invasive therapies are becoming increasingly popular for the treatment of symptomatic benign thyroid nodules. Efforts have been directed on the prediction of volume reduction as a measure of efficacy of the procedure. Aim of the present study is to identify predictors of 6-months volume reduction rate (VRR) after radiofrequency ablation of benign thyroid nodules.Materials and Methods: We performed a retrospective s...

The iodothyronine deiodinases constitute a family of three selenoenzymes regulating the intracellular metabolism of Thyroid Hormones (THs, T4 and T3) and impacting on several physiological processes, including energy metabolism, development and cell differentiation. The type 1, 2 and 3 deiodinases (D1, D2, and D3), are sensitive, rate-limiting components within the TH axis, and rapidly control TH action in physiological conditions or disease. Notably, several human pathologies...

Thyroid hormones measure is inevitable in some critically ill patients and may help the management. Alternatively, the physiological changes in the thyroid imbalance during pregnancy also make establishing reference intervals for critical ill challenging.Objectives: We aimed to compare reference intervals in an obstetric intensive care unit.Methods: After excluding patients admitted after delivery or pregnant under thyroid disease ...

Background: Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is the most frequent cause of diabetes of the exocrine pancreas (DEP). Although the specific alterations of DEP are not completely understood, individuals with DEP are considered affected by pancreatic endocrine insufficiency and treated with insulin. To investigate the functional alterations of DEP, we evaluated differences in glucose metabolism in patients with and without CP, classified according to their glucose tolerance (NGT, IGT, DM...

Background: The clinical burden of Klinefelter Syndrome (KS) is not limited to the impairment of gonadal function and an increased prevalence of cardio-metabolic, endocrinological and oncological diseases, but also involve several cognitional, behavioural and psychological issues. Because of the wide heterogeneity in clinical phenotype, the diagnosis of KS is still challenging, resulting in a significant number of patients to remain undiagnosed or to have a late diagnosis. Ver...

Introduction: The long acting GLP-1 analogue, Semaglutide (S), is indicated for the treatment of adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Since November 2021, S has also been approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) at a dose of 2.4 mg for the treatment of obesity. Here, we report the efficacy of S, either alone or in combination with other antidiabetic drugs, in patients with T2DM and obesity on glycated hemoglobin (HBA1C) and weight loss.Pat...

Beta thalassemia major (betaTM) is an inherited hematological disorder characterized by reduced or absent synthesis of beta-globin chains and anemia. Chronic transfusion treatment is necessary, exposing patients to iron overload comorbidities such as hypogonadism. It is due to iron accumulation in the pituitary gland and, more rarely, in testis and ovaries. HPG axis dysfunction can manifest as low estradiol or testosterone with low to normal serum LH and FSH, as commonly seen ...