Endocrine Abstracts

Context: Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) are endocrine malignant neoplasms associated with severe aggressiveness. Tumour-related glucocorticoid excess occurs in 60% of patients and is associated with poor prognosis. First clinical trials using immune checkpoint inhibitors are quite unsatisfactory and treatment advancements are urgently needed.Recently, we characterized tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in ACC and identified the detrimental dependency...

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare malignancy with heterogeneous but dismal prognosis and despite numerous efforts to improve patient care, effective treatment options are still lacking. ACC in vitro research faces for decades one major obstacle - the unavailability of different ACC cell line models. Here, we present a newly established human ACC cell line that was directly transferred to and now proliferates in cell culture. JIL-O cell line was derived from a p...

Introduction: Onset of hyperkalemia has previously been reported during the administration of hypertonic resuscitation solutions. Since the hypertonic saline infusion test has recently been validated for the diagnosis of diabetes insipidus, we aimed to investigate the course of plasma potassium levels during the test.Material and Methods: Data of 144 patients undergoing osmotic stimulation with hypertonic saline infusion at 11 tertiary medical centres in...

Background: Adrenocortical tumors consist of benign adenomas (ACA) and highly malignant carcinomas (ACC) with a still incompletely understood pathogenesis. Our aim was to test, whether there is evidence for an adenoma-carcinoma sequence.Patients and methods: High-resolution single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) microarrays (Affymetrix SNP 6.0) were used to detect copy number alterations (CNAs) and copy neutral losses of heterozygosity (cnLOH) in 46 adreno...

Adrenal crisis (AC) is a life threatening condition in chronic adrenal insufficiency (AI). Furthermore, recent data demonstrate increased mortality in this patient group.Incidence and causes of adrenal crisis as well as general morbidity and hospitalization was assessed in 472 patients in a prospective trial. Patients were contacted via mail every 6 months and in case of AC additionally by phone to evaluate the exact circumstances of AC. Criteria for AC ...

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is part of the Li-Fraumeni tumour syndrome which is due to germline mutations in TP53. Recent studies demonstrate low penetrance mutations leading to later tumour manifestation. Furthermore, in ACC mutations outside the hotspot region have been found. TP53-polymorphisms have also been described to impact on p53 function. We, therefore investigated TP53 sequence alterations in a large cohort of adult patients with ACC.Method...

Subject: Treatment options for adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) are still unsatisfactory. We could recently demonstrate that several patients with ACC exhibit a high and specific uptake of 123I-Iodometomidate (123I-IMTO). Therefore, we investigated if 131I-IMTO holds potential for radiotherapy in ACC.Methods: Dosimetry with 40 MBq I-131-IMTO was performed over 5 days in 7 patients and calculated activities were administered on a compassionate use basis in ...

Introduction: Chemokines and their receptors (CR) have been demonstrated to be involved in tumour growth and site specific metastasis. Furthermore, several cytokines have been described to modulate adrenocortical function. Therefore, we have investigated the expression pattern and functional activity of chemokine receptors and of corresponding chemokines in adrenocortical tissue.Methods: Chemokine and CR expression was assessed by RT-PCR in normal adrena...

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare and heterogeneous malignancy with incompletely understood pathogenesis and poor prognosis. Recent data from the German ACC Registry (n=377) demonstrate an overall 5-year survival of 46%. Survival is clearly stage-dependent (P<0.01) with a 5-year survival of 85% in stage 1, 56% in stage 2, 42% in stage 3, and 16% in stage 4, respectively.In stages I –III open surgery by an expert surgeon aimi...

Androgen excess is a key feature of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). Pre-receptor regulation contributes to this with increased activation of testosterone (T) to 5α-dihydrotesterone (DHT) by 5α-reductase type 1 (SRD5A1), as we have shown previously in PCOS (Lancet 1990,335:431; JCE&M 2003,88:2760). Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) are easily accessible and a useful model for studying pre-receptor regulation in the immune compartment. We have previous...