Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Persons with assigned either male (AMAB) or female (AFAB) sex at birth might wish to obtain feminization or masculinization, respectively. To this purpose, hormonal treatment with sex hormones must be tailored to each subject. Several studies and the European Society of Endocrinology guidelines tried to identify the optimal hormonal treatment in both AMAB and AFAB subjects. However, the clinical management in the long term follow-up remains challenging. Many treatm...

Introduction: Male idiopathic infertility represents a therapeutic challenge for physicians, since a targeted aetiological treatment does not exist. Several hormonal and non-hormonal therapies have been proposed so far to increase pregnancy rates. Among hormonal therapies, exogenous follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) administration shows the most convincing physiological rationale in the face of a clinical efficacy below expectations. Indeed, from evidences available in the li...

Background: Erectile dysfunction (ED) represents the most frequent sexual dysfunction. Among several possible ED aetiologies, vascular ED (vED) presents the greatest implications for global individual health, resulting an early hallmark of cardiovascular diseases. Indeed, vED was demonstrated associated with a 1.25 times greater risk of developing major cardiovascular diseases. Alongside cardiovascular aspect, the evaluation of patients health, measured by the comorbidities nu...

Objective: Environmental rhythmicity seems able to affect the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis in animals, but the extent of its influence in humans is still controversial. This study was designed to evaluate seasonal fluctuations of the main hormones involved in the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis in men, using a big data approach.Methods: An observational, retrospective, big data trial was carried out, including all testosterone, luteinizing hor...

Background: Many chemicals present within the environment, as well as natural and artificial components of our diet, have the potential to interfere with the physiological role of hormones, interfering with hormone biosynthesis, signalling or metabolism. In the last years AMH, a protein secreted by granulosa cells, has emerged as a reliable marker of ovarian reserve. It is largely accepted the influence of age and smoking on AMH serum levels, although a clear effect of environ...

Background and aim of the study: Several ultrasound (US) classifications for estimating thyroid nodules risk have been proposed. Since most of them are hardly applicable in clinical practice, we created a local tool, named Modena classification (MC), considering US characteristics and clinician subjective impression. The aim is to verify the diagnostic accuracy of MC and to compare it to US classifications of American Thyroid Association(ATA) (1) and British Thyroid Associatio...

Luteinizing hormone (LH) and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) are two glycoprotein hormones regulating development and reproduction. Despite binding the same receptor (LHCGR), they elicit different intracellular signaling. In vitro non-equivalence of hCG and LH was previously demonstrated in human primary granulosa cells. The aim of this study is to compare the effects of LH and hCG in mouse primary Leydig cells in vitro, naturally expressing the murine rec...

Background: PHPT is often overlooked/underdiagnosed. Several strategies (biochemical markers alone or combined in complex algorithms) have been investigated to easily diagnose/screen PHPT, but PHPT diagnosis remains challenging at present, especially in asymptomatic patients. As serum calcium (Ca) and phosphorous (P) are inversely related in PHPT, the Ca/P ratio could be a good candidate tool for PHPT diagnosis. Surprisingly, no literature data on Ca/P ratio are available, des...

Introduction: β-thalassemia (bT) is associated to several endocrine abnormalities mainly due to iron overload. With the increase in bT-patients life expectancy, due to progresses in iron chelation therapy, more patients enter into adulthood than in the past and the prevalence of endocrine diseases is being reconsidered. The aim of the study is to investigate the prevalence of primary hypoparathyroidism (pHPT) in adult bT-patients and to characterize the relative clinical ...

Introduction: Growth Hormone deficiency (GHD) is frequent in patients with human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1), undergoing highly active antiretroviral therapy. GHD seems to depend on HIV-related lipodystrophy and to be less frequent in women.Aim of the study: To investigate the association of gender, body composition and GH/IGF1 axis, and to clarify whether GHD in HIV-infected patients is functional or a clinical entity.Methods...