Endocrine Abstracts

In patients with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) due to 21-hydroxylase deficiency, life-long glucocorticoid (GC) treatment is often required to replace cortisol deficiency and to avoid the ACTH-dependent androgen levels increase. However, in these patients, the multiple daily doses required with conventional GCs can cause cortisol overexposure, leading to an increased risk of metabolic syndrome (MS), an impaired quality of life (QoL), and poor treatment compliance (TC). T...

Adrenocortical cancer (ACC) is a rare cancer with poor prognosis and scant treatment options. Mitotane alone, or in combination with cytotoxic chemotherapy, represents the referral current treatment for patients with unresectable ACC. Recent studies have shown that mTOR inhibitors suppress growth of ACC cells. This study aimed at evaluating the effects of mitotane in combination with mTOR inhibitors. In H295 and SW13 cells we tested the effects of a 6 day treatment with increa...

Thyroid cancer is highly prevalent in women aged 15–44 years, suggesting that in females the fertile age could be regarded as a risk factor. Consistently, in the last decades epidemiological and experimental findings indicated a possible role of oestrogens in the development and progression of differentiated thyroid tumours. We studied the expression of oestrogen receptor α (ER α) and Progesteron receptor (PR) in 182 female and male patients with papillary thyro...

The mTOR and IGF/insulin pathways are frequently dysregulated in HCC. Antitumoral activity of mTOR inhibitors (mTORi) has been demonstrated in experimental models but in early clinical studies mTORi alone have shown modest antitumoral activity. IGF/insulin-dependent Akt activation, via IGF1R and IR, has been suggested as potential mechanism for mTORi resistance. This study aimed at evaluating the expression of mTOR and IGF/insulin pathway components and the effects of mTORi al...

Life-long glucocorticoid (GC) treatment is needed in patients with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) due to 21-hydroxylase deficiency in order to replace cortisol deficiency and to control ACTH and consequently androgen levels. Therefore, patients with CAH tend to have an increased risk of metabolic syndrome (MS), probably due to cortisol overexposure, caused by multiple daily doses of conventional GCs, unable to mimic cortisol circadian rhythm. The current study aimed at i...

Introduction: Bone marrow fat is considered a risk factor for osteoporosis and fragility fracture. It is not clear if bone marrow adiposity is increased in obesity and how it relates to other compartments of adipose tissue, in particular visceral adipose tissue (VAT), subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT), and epicardial adipose tissue (EAT).Aim: To evaluate bone marrow adiposity in obese as compared with normal weight women.Design: Tw...

It is well known that heart failure is associated with oxidative stress (OS). Reactive oxygen species in fact influence sarcolemmal and mitochondrial ione channels, which are responsible for cardiomyocyte excitability and are important in myocardial remodeling after a myocardial infarction. The decrease of anabolic axes can have a role in the progression of the illness.In order to evaluate the relationship between growth hormone deficiency (GHD) and inde...

Introduction: Hypophysitis is a frequent side effect of oncologic immunotherapy. The recommended standard treatment is systemic high-dose corticosteroids (HDS), however, recent studies have questioned the benefits of this treatment. We sought to examine the effect of HDS on immunotherapy-induced hypophysitis (IH) in a multi-centric cohort.Methods: Medical records of 41 patients with IH treated by specialist endocrinologists at three tertiary referral cen...

Introduction: Bilateral inferior petrosal sinus sampling (BIPSS) is the test that offers the highest diagnostic accuracy in the differential diagnosis between pituitary and ectopic Cushng’s syndrome (CS). The aim of this study was to compare the diagnostic accuracy of BIPSS performed in the last six years, after the change in the technical procedure with that performed in the past period in Naples centre.Patients and methods: Seventeen patients with...

Introduction: Generously supported by IPSEN)-->Glucocorticoids (GC) have a stimulatory effect on neutrophils and an inhibitory effect on the other leukocyte subpopulations. A potential stimulatory effect on erythropoiesis has been also hypothesized. The aim of our study was to evaluate the effect of pasireotide treatment on hemochrome parameters in patients with endogenous pituitary-dependent glucocorticoid excess or Cushing’s d...