Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is an autosomal recessive inherited disorder caused by 21-hydroxylase deficiency in 95% of all cases. Two main clinical subtypes: the classical (manifested after birth, or in early newborn period) and the late onset (LO) phenotype (manifested commonly during puberty). The lifelong glucocorticoid (GC) supplementation is essential in therapy of these patients. Response to GC therapy is individual and partly genetically determined....

Objective: Sporadic adrenocortical tumors are common, but their pathogenesis is poorly elucidated. Several mRNA profiling and comparative genome hybridization (CGH) studies have been performed on adrenocortical tumors to date. Meta-analysis of these results may be warranted due to the low number of tumor samples examined in several individual studies. Here, we present an integrative meta-analysis of gene expression microarray and CGH studies performed to date on sporadic adren...

Introduction: MicroRNAs (miRs) are 16–29 nucleotide long, non-coding RNA molecules that post-transcriptionally regulate gene expression via RNA interference. It has been shown that they participate in control of cell proliferation, cell differentiation, signal transduction, cell death and carcinogenesis.Aim: To examine the role of the miRs in sporadic pituitary tumourigenesis.Methods: Twenty-five sporadic pituitary adenoma spe...

Adrenocortical tumors are common, occuring in 5-7% of the population. Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is rare (0.7-2/million/year) and it has a poor prognosis with a five-year survival of less than 30% in advanced stages. The histological differentiation of benign and malignant adrenocortical tumors is challenging.Objectives: To explore the diagnostic utility of multiple microRNAs in various combinations as markers of adrenocortical malignancy by using ar...

Background: Few effective medical treatment options are available for adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC). Intensive efforts are therefore going on for exploring novel pathways and treatment targets.Objective: To perform a proteomic and pathway analysis on a 9-cisRA (9-cis retinoic acid) and mitotane-treated ACC xenograft model.Methods: 43 male SCID mice xenografted with NCI-H295R cells were treated in four groups (i. control, ii. 5 mg/...

Background: Current drug treatment options for adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) are rather limited and intensive efforts are going on to find novel effective agents. In our previous functional genomics study, retinoid signalling via the retinoid X receptor (RXR) was identified as a major pathogenic pathway in ACC and we have demonstrated the in vitro activity of 9-cis retinoic acid (9-cisRA) acting via the RXR on NCI-H295R cells and also found that 9-cisRA has antitumou...

Background: The medical treatment options of adrenocortical cancer are limited. In our previous meta-analysis of adrenocortical tumor genomics data, adrenocortical cancer was found to be associated with reduced retinoic acid production and retinoid X receptor-mediated signaling.Objective: To study the potential antitumoral effects of 9-cis-retinoic acid (9-cisRA) on the adrenocortical cancer cell line NCI-H295R and in a xenograft model....

Background: Midnight salivary cortisol (SalC2400) measurement has been recently suggested as one of the first-line screening tests for hypercortisolism.Aims: In our present study, we evaluated the clinical utility of the salivary cortisol (SalC) measurement in the diagnosis of both overt and subclinical Cushing’s syndrome.Patients and methods: Patients with overt Cushing’s syndrome (n=23, group A) and those with su...

Introduction: The pathogenesis of sporadic adrenocortical tumors is poorly elucidated. Considering the importance of the adrenal cortex at the immune-neuroendocrine interface and the known actions of immune mediators on adrenocortical cell functioning, we supposed that immune or inflammatory factors might be involved in the pathogenesis of these tumors. Gene expression patterns of various inflammatory and immune mediators were studied by a functional genomics/bioinformatics ap...

Introduction: Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are widely used for treating various upper gastrointestinal disorders. A well-known side effect of PPI therapy that may cause serious differential diagnostic problems is the elevation of serum chromogranin A (CgA).Objective: We report a case with highly elevated serum CgA in a patient with bilateral adrenal adenomas that was clearly associated with PPI therapy. Suspension of PPI intake for a few days resulted i...