Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Nodular goiter is one of the commonest endocrinopathy. Its incidence increases with age accounting for more than 50% of subjects older than 60 years. Elderly subjects more frequently suffer from pressure symptoms. Loco-regional treatments, like laser photocoagulation and percutaneous ethanol injection, are a potentially useful tool to treat TNs but their efficacy is still debated. Radiofrequency thermal ablation (RTA) has been applied to several benign and malignan...

The most frequent cause of death in acromegaly is cardiomyopathy. To evaluate determinants of the acromegalic cardiomyopathy we performed an analytical, observational, open, prospective, controlled study in 205 patients with active acromegaly (108 women and 97 men) and 205 non-acromegalic subjects sex- and age-matched with the patients. We determined the prevalence of Left Ventricular (LV) hypertrophy (LVH), diastolic and systolic dysfunction, by echocardiography- measured LV ...

Adults with hypopituitarism are known to have reduced life expectancy with a 2-fold higher risk of death for cardiovascular disease compared with controls. In Italy, to identify individuals at high risk for cardiovascular disease, the function of the Progetto CUORE has been identified and the global cardiovascular risk score has been built using data from different Italian cohorts. To assess the global cardiovascular risk score in adult hypopituitaric patients: 108 hypopituita...

Somatostatin (SSTRs) and dopamine (DRs) receptors are expressed in adrenal tumors. It has been demonstrated in pituitary and neuroendocrine tumors that somatostatin-dopamine chimeric molecules, namely dopastatins, which bind both somatostatin (SST2 and/or SST5) and dopamine (D2) receptors, exert a more potent action compared with the single receptor agonists in experimental settings. The aims of this study were to evaluate the expression of DRs and SSTRs, and the effects of do...

Background: There is a growing body of evidence of an alteration in GH/IGF1 axis in neurological diseases. IGF1 and IGFBP3 serum levels are reported to be similar in controls, relapsing remitting (RR) MS and primary progressive (PP) MS patients, but in RR patients on IFN therapy they were found to be higher then in controls. IGFBP3 was found to correlate to progression index in PPMS.Objective: To compare IGF1 and IGFBP3 serum levels in RR MS and secondar...

The dopamine agonist cabergoline has been found to be effective in inducing normalization of cortisol secretion in 25–50% of patients with Cushing’s disease after long-term treatment. Moreover, tumor shrinkage have been documented in selected patients with pituitary corticotroph tumors. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of cabergoline withdrawal in patients with a stable normalization of cortisol secretion and stable or absent visualization of p...

Subclinical Cushing’s syndrome (SCS) is a mild autonomous cortisol hypersecretion without specific clinical syndrome of glucocorticoid excess. The aim of this study was to compare cardiac structure and function in patients with adrenal incidentaloma. Twenty patients and 20 sex- and age-matched healthy controls entered the study: among patients, 11 had SCS and the remaining nine had normal cortisol secretion All patients and controls were submitted to Doppler echocardiogra...

The first-line treatment of Cushing’s disease is surgery, although it is effective in inducing a long-term remission in around 50% of patients with Cushing’s disease (CD). Nowadays, no pituitary tumor-directed medical treatment is available with the exception of cabergoline, which has been recently demonstrated to control cortisol secretion without major side effects in around 40% of patients with Cushing’s disease. Cabergoline has been recently demonstrated to ...

Background: Severe GH deficiency (GHD) is associated with, increased cardiovascular (CV) risk and intima-media thickness (IMT) at major arteries.Objective: To investigate the long-term (5-years) effects of GH replacement on insulin resistance (IR) syndrome (IRS) (at least two of: triglycerides levels ≥1.7 mmol/l, HDL-cholesterol levels ≤1.0 mmol/l, blood pressure above 130/85 mmHg, fasting glucose 6.1–7 or 2 h after glucose 7.7–11.1...

The prevalence of the metabolic syndrome is increasing worldwide. The untreated metabolic syndrome places individuals at risk both for diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Adult GH deficiency syndrome present some of the 5 features of the metabolic syndrome, abdominal obesity, high triglycerides, low HDL-cholesterol, elevations of blood glucose, hypertension and a 2-fold higher risk of death for CD compared with controls. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence o...