Endocrine Abstracts

The need for thyroid residue ablation in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC), classified with the TNM staging (AJCC, 2002) as pT1, with a maximum diameter comprised between 1 and 2 cm (pT1/1-2) and/or multifocal, is still debated. Aim of this study was to compare the outcome of pT1N0M0 patients submitted or not to postsurgical radioiodine ablation. Consecutive patients followed-up at this Institution from 1996 to 2010 were enrolled. All pT1/1-2N0M0 cases were radioiodine ablated be...

Objective: Metformin is one of the most widely used drugs in primary therapy for the treatment of type 2 diabetes (T2D). Despite its overall efficiency in T2D treatment metformin shows significant proportion of patients suffering from number of side effects. So far number of polymorphisms mainly in genes coding for various metformin transporter proteins have been described in association with metformin efficiency. However, no information exists on influence of genetic variatio...

Introduction: Drospirenone is a synthetic progestin usually found in combination with ethynilestradiol in oral contraceptive formulas. In 2007, this compound was also used in hormonal replacement therapy during menopause. Drospirenone shows antimineralocoricoïd effect due to an analogy of structure with aldosterone. This effect counteracts the estrogen stimulating action of renin–angiotensin–aldosterone (RAA) system, lowering water retention symptoms due to clas...

The recent unavailability of pentagastrin (Pg) in several European Countries, prompted us to evaluate the potency and tolerability of the ‘high dose calcium test’ (Ca) in the stimulation of serum human calcitonin (hCt). We compared Pg- and Ca-stimulated hCt in 19 patients already treated for medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) in remission (n=19) or in persistence (n=13), in 18 patients with chronic thyroiditis and multinodular goiter, and in 15 healthy cont...

PRRT is a treatment choice for inoperable or metastasized neuroendocrine tumours and this therapy seems more effective in the biochemical and volume control of disease than SSA. We investigated the role of medical therapy with SSA and PRRT in patients with well and moderately differentiated neuroendocrine tumours. We evaluated 55 patients with well or moderately differentiated neuroendocrine tumours; 31 patients with either metastatic, unresectable or functioning tumours were ...

Introduction: Metformin is now one of the most common treatments for PCOS. However controversy exists about the usefulness of metformin in PCOS women with normal insulin sensitivity and normal weight. The aim of this study was to compare efficacy of metformin treatment for the purpose of restoration of ovulation in lean and obese women with polycystic ovary syndrome.Design: Thirty-six unovulatory women with PCOS (21 lean with mean body mass index (BMI) 2...

Introduction: Anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) has an inhibitory role during folliculogenesis, which may contribute to anovulation in polycistic ovary syndrome (PCOS). AMH level has been shown to be a predictor of reproductive response to weight loss and clomiphene citrate in women with PCOS. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of AMH as a predictor of improvements in menstrual cyclicity and ovulation induction by metformin in lean women with PCOS.<p class="abs...

Patients with acromegaly resistant to conventional drug treatment currently can advantage with GH-receptor antagonist pegvisomant. To date, at doses up to 40 mg/day, it is capable of normalizing circulating IGF1 in until 97% of patients. Here we present the multicenter experience in Rome with Pegvisomant as a therapeutic option in acromegaly. This is an observational study including a total of 61 patients (21 males and 40 females) treated with pegvisomant for up to 7 years. Of...

Background: The most reliable biochemical markers in the follow-up of medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) are serum calcitonin (CAL) and carcinoembrional antigen (CEA).Case: A 82 years male presented with rapidly growing neck tumour in April 2008. The patient underwent total thyroidectomy with lymph node dissection (June 2008). The pathology revealed MTC localized only in the left lobe (pT3NoMx), the immunohistology showed CAL-, synaptophysin, chromogranin...

Introduction: Several recent studies have reported an increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer during the last decades. The delineation between low-risk and high-risk tumor size is not well defined. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the primary tumor size of differentiated thyroid cancer and clinicopathologic data.Methods: We have analysed all records of all patients submitted to thyroidectomy at our hospital between 2...