Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: The association between autoimmune thyroid diseases and papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is still controversial and it is based only on retrospective analyses.Objective: Aim of the present research was to evaluate this association in a prospective study of unselected consecutive thyroid nodules (TN) submitted to fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC), anti-thyroid autoantibodies (ATA) measurement and histological analyses of surgical sampl...

Objective: The aim of the present study was to determine whether insulin resistance is important in well controlled, uncomplicated patients with type 1 diabetes on long term CSII, compared to matched healthy controls.Research design and methods: We studied 8 patients (4 men and 4 women) with type 1 diabetes on stable continuous subcutaneous insulin pump therapy and 8 healthy controls, matched for age, gender and BMI. Insulin sensitivity was measured by h...

Children with congenital hypothyroidism (CH) due to anatomical defects (AD) have different thyroid hormone levels at presentation from those with dyshormonogenesis (DH). We set out to explore these differences at initial presentation and at follow up. We also compared calcitonin levels and growth in these subjects with healthy controls. Data for the CH children were collected from hospital notes for birth weight, gestation, sex, initial laboratory thyroid function, starting do...

The Estrogen Receptor (ER) is a well-studied, ligand dependent transcription factor. We have analysed, by kinetic chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assays, the mechanisms by which the ER modulates the permissiveness and transcriptional activity of the PS2 gene. Sequential ChIP assays were used to define the cyclical association of approximately 50 different proteins to the pS2 promoter. Key results from these studies are (i) that unliganded and liganded ER direct cycling on...

In the thyroid gland the volume of colloid in the follicles varies considerably. The usually used number weighted mean volume (Vn) does not describe this variation in the distribution of the volume of colloid.Aim: To develop a set of assumption-free stereological methods to determine the variation of the volume of colloid in respect of number and size and to determine the coefficient of this variation (CV). For this purpose we introduce the volume-weight...

Background: Papillary thyroid carcinomas are the most common thyroid malignancies. They are more prevalent in women and have a bimodal age distribution. Thyroglossal duct cyst carcinomas are extremely rare (occurring in only 1% of all thyroglossal duct cysts). The large majority of these carcinomas are of thyroid origin.Case presentation: A 25-year-old woman with no significant medical history was referred to the Endocrinologist with 1-month complaints o...

Introduction: Pheochromocytoma is a rare catecholamine-secreting tumor that arises from the chromaffin tissue of the adrenal medulla. Of the reported cases, only 10% consist in bilateral lesions and the probability of multiple endocrine neoplasia should always be investigated.Clinical case: Female patient, 19 years old, presented with a clinical history with 2 years of evolution, characterized by episodes of palpitations, headache, nausea and abdominal d...

Introduction: The growth of human tumors depends on the formation of new blood vessels and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) helps control this process via inducing new capillaries to sprout from pre-existing blood vessels. Four cardiac hormones which eliminate up to 80% of human pancreatic cancers and up to 86% of human small-cell lung cancers growing in mice were investigated for their effects on VEGF and the VEGFR2/KDR/Flk-1 receptor. The VEGFR2 receptor is the main...

Introduction and methods: Controversy exists regarding the optimal dosing regimen of radioactive iodine (RAI) for the treatment of hyperthyroidism. The dose of RAI was individualised, based on the size of the thyroid gland and 24-h RAI uptake. We performed a 10-year retrospective analysis of patients with hyperthyroidism treated with variable dose RAI, with a cure defined as eu- or hypothyroidism.Results: One hundred and forty-nine patients with hyperthy...

Introduction: Despite normal thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) serum levels, 10% of hypothyroid patients treated with LT4 complain of hypothyroidism symptoms, likely linked to decreased availability of free triiodothyronine (fT3). Thus, combined levothyroxine/liothyronine (LT4/lT3) therapy was suggested to ensure a more physiological balance in peripheral tissues.Aim: To evaluate the effectiveness of combined LT4/lT3 therapy in thyroidectomized subjects,...