Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Although possible autonomous cortisol secretion (pACS) is the commonest endocrine dysfunction detected in patients with adrenal incidentalomas, the diagnosis of this condition is still challenging. Dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) is an adrenal androgen secreted by adrenal glands under the regulation of ACTH. DHEAS does not follow a circadian rhythm and has a long half-life in serum. Because of these features, low blood concentration of DHEAS has been recen...

Background: Chronic hypercortisolism exhibits irregular circadian rhythm and deranged protein metabolism. Altered amino acid(AA) and biogenic amine(BA) circulating levels were found in patients with hypercortisolism. However, there is limited information about the physiologic circadian fluctuation of AA and BA levels, and it is not known whether this is affected by states of hypercortisolism.Aim: To characterize levels and daily fluctuations of AA and BA...

Background: Chronic hypercortisolism is known to alter the circadian rhythm and to impair protein metabolism. Altered amino acid (AA) and biogenic amine (BA) levels were found in basal blood in patients with hypercortisolism. However, poor information is available on the physiologic circadian fluctuation of these molecules. Furthermore, the potential derangement caused by hypercortisolism was never investigated.Aim: To characterize diurnal levels and flu...

Background: Male hypogonadism is defined by low circulating testosterone level associated with signs and symptoms of testosterone deficiency. Although the bidirectional link between hypogonadism and cardiovascular disease has been clarified recently, the association between testosterone and chronic heart failure (CHF) is more controversial. Methods: We critically review published studies relating to testosterone, hypogonadism, and CHF and provide practic...

Background: Several lines of evidence support the view that sarcopenia and osteoporosis are strictly connected. However, the capability of the updated sarcopenia definition to capture the concomitant presence of osteoporosis has been scarcely investigated. Aim: To assess the association between sarcopenia defined according to the revised criteria from the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People (EWGSOP2) and osteoporosis in women with a frag...

To investigate the best criteria and time to diagnose dysglycemia in β-TM patients, the ICETA performed a retrospective study on glycemic abnormalities (GD) in 397 with β-TM patients (aged 5–40 years; 56.3% males) followed between 1988 to 2021 in a single centre (by VDS) (40 years).Methods: Fasting blood glucose (FPG) and standard oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) results were collected over 40 years of follow up and results were categori...

Objective: To investigate whether routine assessment of free testosterone improves the diagnostic accuracy of functional male hypogonadism.Methods: Total and free testosterone (calculated through SHBG assessment) were determined in 372 male patients (median age 44) referring to our department for sexual symptoms symptoms (188 patients) or infertility (184 men). Low total and free testosterone were defined as < 2.31 ng/ml and <63 pg/ml, respective...

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is becoming more common over the world. Its predisposition for evolving to cirrhosis and hepatocellular cancer, as well as its link to extrahepatic symptoms, puts patients and clinicians under a double burden. Several studies have found a link between NAFLD and many endocrinopathies, demonstrating a substantial bi-directional link between NAFLD and hypogonadism, in both men and women. In man with T2DM, NAFLD is linked to reduced total ...

Several reports of Graves’ disease (GD) onset after COVID-19 vaccination were recently published. The mechanism underlying GD occurrence in these cases could be related to the autoimmune syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA), a condition triggered by several vaccine adjuvants and excipients leading to dysfunctional immune response causing different conditions and endocrinopathies in genetically predisposed subjects. In Italy, population campaign for COVID-19 vaccination st...

Introduction: Kallmann syndrome (KS) is a genetic condition characterized by the association of anosmia or hyposmia and GnRH deficiency resulting in congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (CHH). Different genes can be implicated in KS, and the most frequent allelic variant occurs in the KAL1/ANOS1 gene in the X-linked form. Differential diagnosis is often made with other rare genetic diseases as CHARGE syndrome (CS) that includes hypogonadism, hyposmia and several organ defe...