Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Primary aldosteronism (PA) is a rare but underestimated cause of hypertension. PA has been associated with increased risk of malignancy through mechanisms involving up-regulation of the renin angiotensin system (RAS) promoting an enzymatic cascade influencing carcinogenesis. Recently, Microwave Ablation (MWA) has been established as an effective and safe minimal invasive treatment for Conn’s Disease.Aim: The authors present four clinic...

Aim: Dose corrected for thyroid gland size is one of the methods used to determine radioactive iodine (RAI) activity for patients with Graves disease (GD). This study was aimed to investigate the real-world success rate of this method and the predictors of success after first treatment.Methods: This is a retrospective study of 80 patients with GD treated between 2014 and 2020 in a tertiary referral hospital in Almada, Portugal. The successful group was d...

Objective Vitamin D (VD) plays a role in immune response. Recent data shows that low levels of VD could worsen COVID-19 outcomes. This study aimed to establish an association between VD levels among COVID-19 patients with clinical outcomes and inflammatory markers.Methods Prospective multicentric cohort study. Consecutively recruitment. Patients were grouped according admission status and level of VD [sufficient >30 ng/ml (VDS), insufficient 20–...

Introduction: The best timing for PRRT (peptide receptor radionuclide therapy) in the case of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (panNETs) is still to define, as randomized prospective trials are lacking. Recent studies suggest that some systemic therapies can affect response to PRRT, favoring an earlier use of the latter.Objective: To determine the efficacy and toxicity of PRRT, comparing its results when used as a second line systemic therapy (a...

Background: Male hypogonadism is known to be associated with an increased incidence of cardiovascular (CV) events, although the underlying biochemical mechanisms are so far not fully understood. The clinical condition characterized by low levels of testosterone offers a unique model to unravel the possible role of lipoprotein-associated abnormalities in CV risk. In particular, the assessment of the functional capacities of high-density lipoproteins (HDL) may provide novel insi...

Adrenocortical cancer (ACC) is a rare aggressive malignancy, with poor prognosis when metastaic at diagnosis. Recent ACC pan-genomics analysis contributed to redefine the risk groups on molecular bases, including tumor micro RNA (miR), which can be detectable not only in the primary lesion but also in the bloodstream.We develop a quantitative real-time assay for the measurement of absolute levels in plasma samples of miR483 and its mature miR483-5p form....

Introduction: Patients with germline mutations in one of the succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) genes are at substantially increased risk of developing paragangliomas (PGL) and pheochromocytomas (PCC). Mutations in SDHB are the most commonly found gene mutations in PC/PGL and are associated with younger ages at presentation, higher rates of metastases and poorer prognosis. Although familial PGL syndromes were initially thought to predispose only for PCC and PGL, other tumor types s...

The potential therapeutic applications of targeting brown adipose tissue open new clinical avenues in fighting against metabolic pathologies. However, due to the limited brown depots in adult humans, dramatically reduced after birth, solid cell models to study human brown adipogenesis and its pathophysiological regulation are urgently needed.In our study, we characterized a novel human model of brown adipose stem cells, hfB-ASC, derived from fetal inters...

The recent discovery of the presence of brown adipose tissue (BAT) also in human adults is pivotal for development of anti-obesity therapies. This type of fat, in fact, mainly consists of brite cells (brown adipocytes appearing for a browning process in white fat) which are involved in adiposity control. The origin of brite cells in adult white adipose tissue (WAT) is still unclear as human cell models are lacking.Our study demonstrated the presence of B...

With preterm regression of the hyaloid vascular system, the human vitreous becomes devoid of blood vessels and maintains an avascular, transparent state throughout life. However, diseases of the developing and mature retina, such as retinopathy of prematurity or proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR), often result in the invasion of blood vessels into the vitreous, with a risk of causing vitreous hemorrhage, retinal detachment and, consequently, loss of vision or blindness. ...