Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Current medical treatment of adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is based on mitotane alone or in combination with cytotoxic chemotherapy. However, very little is known about the pharmacokinetic properties of mitotane and dosing schedules are based on clinical experience only. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between mitotane dose and plasma concentration comparing two pre-defined treatment regimens. Secondary objectives were to evaluate safet...

Case presentation: A 84 year-old male without family history of thyroid disease was referred to our clinic by his cardiologist, diagnosed as having primary hypothyroidism, characterized by persistent elevated TSH without response to L-thyroxine over the course of a year. Co-morbidities included arterial hypertension, auricular fibrillation (AF) and glucose intolerance, treated with propafenone, clopidogrel, enalapril, and digoxine. On physical examination, he pr...

A functional sodium iodide symporter (NIS) is essential for radioiodine treatment of thyroid cancer. Unfortunately, most of de-differentiated tumours as well as anaplastic thyroid cancers loss the ability to concentrate iodine. Loss of NIS expression usually depends on epigenetic modifications, suggesting the use of epigenetic drugs as promising tools for re-differentiation. Panobinostat (LBH589) is a novel deacetylase inhibitor, acting at nanomolar concentrations, currently i...

Background: Liver metastases occur in about 40–85% of patients with neuroendocrine tumours (NET). NET usually run a rather indolent course but the 5-year survival is about 40% in patients with liver metastases versus 75–99% in subjects free of hepatic lesions. The most effective management and timing of treatment for patients with surgically unresectable metastases remains still unsettled.Purpose: To evaluate the feasibility, safety, and clinic...

In the diagnosis of Cushing’s disease (CD) desmopressin (dDAVP) stimulation test may be a convenient and more readily available alternative to CRH test; however the sensibility and specificity of ACTH response to dDAVP test has been reported in adult patients inferior to CRH test. In childhood patients with CD there are no data for the use of dDAVP test in this clinical setting. We studied 9 patients ranging in age from 11 to 19 years (7 females and 2 males) with a suspec...

Inflammation activates a variety of inflammatory cells, which induce and activate several oxidant-generating enzymes which are able to produce high concentrations of free radicals and oxidants which react with each other to generate other more potent reactive oxygen and nitrogen species such as peroxynitrite (ONOO−) that can damage DNA, RNA, lipids, and proteins by nitration, oxidation, etc., leading to increased mutations and altered functions of enzymes and ...

Context: Abdominally obese individuals have relative hyposomatotropism, elevated serum markers of inflammation, and increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD).Objective: The aim was to study the effect of GH treatment on serum levels of inflammatory markers and vascular adhesion molecules in postmenopausal women with abdominal obesity.Design: Forty postmenopausal women aged 51–63 yrs with abdominal obesity received GH (0.6...

Overweight and obesity is an escalating global health problem, affecting 40% of the population and being the 5th largest cause of death worldwide. Treatment options are limited, with pharmaceutical approaches being inadequate and the success of bariatric surgery being limited by its invasive nature. The regulation of appetite by small bioactive compounds in the gastrointestinal tract is an important target in antiobesity research. Metabolites from diet and both host and microb...

Transcriptional enhancers, which function as nucleation sites for the assembly of transcription-regulating complexes across the genome, drive cell type-specific patterns of gene expression that underlie the distinct biological properties of different cell types. Although many features of active enhancers (e.g., H3K4me1, H3K27ac, enrichment of p300/CBP and Mediator, and enhancer RNA production) have been defined by genomic assays, the roles of these features in ERα enhance...

Background: Obesity represents a threatening worldwide epidemic but, beyond the guidelines recommendations, its modalities of treatment in the medical community appear as variable and not clearly defined. Aim of our survey was to assess the present real-world approach to obesity management in Italy.Methods: Online anonymous survey among the 2248 members of the Italian Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AME). The survey included 8 questions about d...