Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Ghrelin and its endogenous antagonist liver-expressed antimicrobial peptide-2 (LEAP-2) are involved in GH secretion, both acting on GSH-r1α, and regulation of glucose and lipids metabolism. Metabolic impairments are often accompanied by an upregulation of LEAP-2 expression, with a usual concomitant reduction in ghrelin secretion. Adult growth hormone deficiency (aGHD), characterized by weight gain, increased fat mass and insulin resistance, represent a conditi...

Cushing’s Disease (CD) is severe clinical condition due to an ACTH-secreting pituitary tumor. Here we present the case of a 25-years old male who came to our attention for hypertension, moon face, acanthosis nigricans, abdominal purple striae and central obesity. The diagnosis of CD was based on the presence of high plasma cortisol after dexamethasone suppression test and elevated urinary free cortisol levels (UFC, 6-fold higher the upper limit of normality (ULN)). The pi...

Introduction: Nivolumab is an anti-programmed cell death-1 monoclonal antibody approved for the treatment of metastatic malignant melanoma. Several endocrine disorders have been reported as immune-related adverse effects. However, nivolumab-induced hypophysitis has a lower incidence than ipililumab.Case report: A 69-years old man with metastatic melanoma started to receive nivolumab. Ten weeks after the first cycle of nivolumab he presented hyperthyroidi...

Background: Pituitary adenomas (PAs)/Pituitary Neuroendocrine Tumors (PitNETs) are a complex and heterogeneous group of lesions. Genetic and epigenetic studies have been performed to identify predictors of treatment outcome.Study aim: To profile clinically non-aggressive (NA) and aggressive (A) PAs/PitNETs, and carcinomas for somatic mutations and epigenetic alterations of genes involved in cell proliferation/differentiation, miRNA/lncRNA-post-transcript...

Background: Endoscopic surgery (ES) performed in Pituitary Centers of Excellence (PCOE) represents the gold standard treatment for GH-secreting adenomas. However, rate of cure greatly varies according to definition criteria, follow-up duration, various patient and adenoma features, and surgeon ability.Study aim: To assess short- (3 month) and long-term (≥1 year) outcome and identify predictors of ES, in a large and homogeneous cohort of acromegaly ...

Patients affected by adult growth hormone deficiency (aGHD) show worse metabolic profile, with insulin-resistance, increased total cholesterol, LDL, triglycerides, reduced HDL, and higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular complications. Adult GHD and metabolic syndrome (MetS) are closely related to each other, since they share the previous depicted clinical features, while obese MetS patients display lower IGF-1 levels due to a functional reduction...

A 52-year-old female patient with no previous history of interest, and with no prescribed habitual chronic treatment, was admitted to our hospital to be studied for symptomatic hypoglycemias of one month of evolution. Symptoms consisted of malaise, hunger, tremors and profuse sweating that disappeared with food ingestion. She referred hypoglycemic (up to 40 mg/dl) episodes daily, both in fasting and postprandial periods. She even suffered nocturnal episodes that woke her up. O...

Introduction/Background: Patients with NETs and acromegaly are commonly treated with somatostatin analogues (SSAs), such as octreotide and lanreotide depot formulations. The Pharmathen syringe is now available in several European countries and the USA for lanreotide depot injection. When using SSAs, confidence in and ease of use with syringes is important for decision-making in long-term therapy.Aims: PRESTO 3 compared nurses’ preference for the Som...

Pituitary apoplexy (PA) is a rare clinical syndrome due to sudden haemorrhage and/or infarction of the pituitary gland, usually within a pre-existent pituitary tumour. Even though some sporadic cases of PA associated with rare sellar lesions (such as Rathke cleft cysts) have been reported, in the vast majority of cases the syndrome occurs within a pituitary adenoma. At presentation, patients with PA usually complain of sudden and severe headache, often associated with visual l...

Materials and methods: The aims were to evaluate the frequency of nodular thyroid disease (NTD) in acromegalic patients and to correlate clinical and metabolic features with disease activity and other. We conducted a cross-sectional study including retrospectively 69 acromegalic patients attending to an University Hospital in Madrid, Spain between 1980 and 2016. Mean age was 63 (32–92) years, 63.8% of patients were female. Mean age at diagnosis of acromegaly was 48 (11&#1...