Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Deciding whether patients with a cytologically indeterminate thyroid nodule should be referred for surgery or for active surveillance is an important challenge for clinicians. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of a novel dual-component molecular assay as an ancillary molecular method for resolving indeterminate thyroid nodule cytology.Methods: We selected 156 thyroid nodules from those that had undergone both FNA cytology ...

Thyroid hormone (T3) is mostly produced in peripheral tissues by thyroxine (T4) deiodination, and its functional effects are directly related to tissue concentration, which is quite difficult to assay by conventional immunological methods. We report a novel technique, based on tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) coupled to HPLC, which was used in left ventricular myocardium obtained from rat and human hearts.Samples were homogenized in...

Background: Clinical reactive hypoglycemic events are defined as the coexistence of plasma glucose <60 mg/dl and autonomic and/or neuroglycopenic symptoms occurring in fed conditions. The diagnosis is based on tests aiming to simulate the causative triggers (i.e. mixed meal test). In clinical practice, however, a high percentage of symptomatic patients results negative to such diagnostic approach, leading to the impression of an inadequate sensitivity of this diagnostic to...

Many studies demonstrated that somatic BRAF gene mutation analysis increases diagnostic accuracy for papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), even from very small samples. The gold standard for point mutations research is direct sequencing, that implies DNA extraction, PCR with specific primers, sequencing reaction and run on an automatic sequencer. This is an expensive and time consuming method, and the possible contamination with wild-type DNA not coming from the nodule significan...

Male transgenic (TG) mice overexpressing both the hCGα- and hCGβ- subunits present elevated levels of circulating hCG, Leydig cell hyperplasia/hypertrophy, elevated androgen levels and infertility (Rulli et al. 2003). In addition, serum FSH is significantly reduced in prepuberal and adult TG males compared with wild-types (WT), and does not change after treatment with the antiandrogen flutamide. The aim of this study was to evaluate the regulation of the hypot...

Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) represents the majority of differentiated thyroid cancers, presenting in 29–83% of cases the activating BRAF V600E mutation. The aim of our study was to analyse the influence of BRAF V600E mutation analysis on diagnostic accuracy of fine needle aspiration biopsies (FNAB) in clinically unsuspected thyroid nodules. We therefore enrolled 496 patients (383 females, 113 males; mean age 52 years), for a total of 671 samples. FNAB were evaluated by...

Objective: Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) and thyroid diseases are common in the general population. It is difficult to establish whether they occur in the same patient because of a direct relationship or just due to the widespread prevalence of both conditions. The reported prevalence of the concomitant occurrence of these two clinical conditions is widely scattered (ranging 17–84%), especially due to the heterogeneous criteria for patient selection. We aimed to eval...

IntroductionThe oral 11β-hydroxylase inhibitor, osilodrostat, normalized mean urinary free cortisol (mUFC) in 79% (15/19) of patients with Cushing’s disease at the end of the 22-week core LINC 2 study. Long-term efficacy and safety data following an optional extension phase are reported here.MethodsPatients with clinical benefit at week 22 could continue receiving osilodrostat during the extension; ...

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...

Introduction: The onset and progression of liver damage in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is tightly associated with metabolic derangements. Steroids may affect lipid metabolism but their alterations in the setting of NAFLD remain to be fully explored.Patients and Methods: We analyzed data from 121 patients with biopsy-proven NAFLD and 108 controls (CT). A panel of 26 steroids (including glucocorticoids, mineralocorticoids, androgens, and prog...