Endocrine Abstracts

A 58-year-old male patient presented with a 2 months history of bilateral frontotemporal headache, fatigue and impaired vision. Further exploration revealed short term memory losses, confusion, gait disturbances, decreased libido and erectile dysfunction. Radiological investigation showed a 4 cm pituitary mass with destruction of the upper clivus and left petrous apex associated with a 5 cm large suprasellar cyst bulging upward into the 3d ventricle with obstruction hydrocepha...

The immunosuppressive effect of corticosteroids is well known. In some circumstances prophylactic antibiotic therapy is routinely used to lower the risk of opportunistic infections in immunocompromised patients with exogenous hypercortisolemia. The incidence of opportunistic infection in endogenous hypercortisolemia in Cushing’s syndrome is 11–17%, correlating with degree of hypercotisolemia. Only several case reports have been published about pneumocystis pneumonia ...

Introduction: Obesity does constitute one of the most common modifiable risk factors for cancer. The process of cancerogenesis is associated with the enhanced oxidative stress. Lipid peroxidation (LPO), resulting from oxidative damage to membrane lipids, as well as oxidative damage to DNA, are the most frequently examined processes to evaluate oxidative damage to macromolecules.Aim: The aim of the study was to evaluate the level of oxidative damage to me...

Background: Etiology of infertility and miscarriages is multifactorial. Negative impact of overt thyroid dysfunction on fertility, pregnancy and development of offspring is known. Moreover, even presence of euthyroid autoimmune thyroid diseases may increase risk of miscarriages. The prevalence of positive antibodies to thyroid peroxidase (TPOAb) ranges 9–39% in women with recurrent miscarriages and 0–37% in controls. The aim of the study was to compare serum concentr...

The aim of this study was to perform a randomized study to evaluate the role of haemorheopheresis in the treatment of severe thyroid associated ophtalmopathy (TAO). Twenty patients were enrolled. All patients were treated with methylprednisolone i.v. pulses (Solumedrol 1 g i.v. three times a week for 3 weeks – 9 pulses altogether). Ten randomly chosen patients were also subjected to haemorheopheresis (twice weekly for 2 weeks and than once in 3 weeks – 10 procedures ...

Objective: Aiming at the highest specifity in differentiating benign from malignant thyroid nodules effects in new diagnostics developments. Recent technologies such as elastography enable determination of tissue stiffness difference between focal lesions and surrounding thyroid tissue – reference tissue. This method is based on quantifying the stiffness of the lesion – the malignant changes show decreased elasticity when compared to adjacent tissue. Tissue Doppler u...

A key component of androgen synthesis is the availability of the pro-hormone DHEA, which is either converted to active androgens or inactivated to its sulfate ester DHEAS by DHEA sulfotransferase (SULT2A1). The latter reaction requires provision of the universal sulfate donor 3′-phosphoadenosine-5′-phosphosulfate, PAPS. In humans, PAPS is generated by the PAPS synthase isoforms PAPSS1 and PAPSS2. Recently, inactivating PAPSS2 mutations have been identified i...

Objective: To assess if weekly administration of 40 mg pegvisomant (PEG-V) improves quality of life (QoL) and metabolic parameters in acromegalic patients with already normal age-adjusted insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) concentrations during long-acting somatostatin analog (SSA) treatment.Design: Prospective investigator-initiated, double blind, placebo controlled, cross-over study. Twenty acromegalic subjects received for two consecutive treatment ...

Retinoid receptors (RARs) upon a proper ligand binding act as all-trans retinoic acid-inducible transcription factors interacting as heterodimers with retinoid X receptors (RXRs). Predominantly, novel synthetic retinoid analogues acting through RARs as redifferentiation agents would be of great value in treating patients with advanced thyroid cancer.The objective of this study was to investigate all-trans retinoic acid/9-cis retinoic acid n...

Context and objective: During fasting growth hormone (GH) promotes lipolysis, attenuates glucose oxidation and preserves protein. Previous studies have primarily been conducted in GH deficient patients or during somatostatin-suppression of GH secretion. We aimed to study the impact of the fasting associated increase in GH without concomitant changes in other hormones, by the means of GH receptor (GHR) blockade.Design: Ten healthy young men participated i...