Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Sirolimus is an immunosuppressive drug with anti-fibrotic and anti-proliferative activities. In vitro, sirolimus inhibits differentiation of orbital fibroblasts from patients with Graves’ orbitopathy (GO), suggesting a possible use in clinical practice.Methods: We performed a retrospective investigation aimed at evaluating the effects of sirolimus as a second-line treatment for moderate-to-severe, active GO, compared with methyl...

Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) is a common disorder in adults but is uncommon in young people and features of juvenile PHPT (J-PHPT) are debated in literature. The aim of the study was to evaluate the characteristics of PHPT in juvenile sporadic (S) and familial (F) patients. It’s a monocentric prospective study at a referral centre in 154 patients with ≤40 years. Patients were evaluated at diagnosis and at the last follow-up visit (median follow-up 2 years), co...

HDR syndrome is a rare condition with an autosomic dominant inheritance, firstly described in 1977. It is due to a mutation of GATA3 gene, a transcription factor expressed in parathyroid, inner ear, kidney, central nervous system and T lymphocytes. The most common manifestation is neurosensorial deaf, secondary to progressive degeneration of coclear cells. Hypoparathyroidism is present in 90% of patients that can be asymptomatic or, sometimes presents with ne...

Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) is defined by hypercalcemia and high PTH levels. In recent years a variant of PHPT has been described, namely normocalcemic PHPT (NPHPT), which is characterized by normal serum calcium and high PTH levels, in the absence of other causes of secondary hyperparathyroidism. The epidemiology of NPHPT is poorly understood. We performed a survey in the early fall in a small Southern Italian village, in which all adult residents (n=1811) wer...

The molecular basis of parathyroid tumorigenesis has increased greatly over the last years and the variety of described abnormalities suggests different genetic defects leading to dysfunction of parathyroid cells. Using a combined approach based on two-dimensional electrophoresis (2DE) and mass spectrometry (MS) we performed a comparative proteome analysis to examine the global changes of parathyroid adenoma tissues protein profile with respect to the normal parathyroid tissue...

The kidney is an important target of primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT). The 4th International Workshop for the management of Asymptomatic PHPT included the presence of hypercalciuria (24-h urinary calcium > 400 mg/day) and increased stone risk by biochemical stone risk profile as criteria for surgery. Increased stone risk profile was defined as at least one between ßCaOx>4 and ßHPO4>2, as defined in literature in a different study population. The aim of ...

Background: Temozolomide is an alkylating chemoterapic agent that ties a methyl to guanine, causing a base-pair mismatch and a DNA damage, resulting in cell death. Due to its lipophilic nature and its ability to cross the blood-brain barrier, this drug was originally used for malignant gliomas and later for aggressive pituitary tumors and carcinomas. Temozolomide is now recommended as first-line chemotherapy by the recently published ESE Clinical Practice Guidelines. Here we p...

Introduction: Acromegalic heart disease is characterized by concentric left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy and impaired LV function. Speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) allows a non-invasive and reproducible study of myocardial strain, a marker of cardiac deformability and early ventricular systolic dysfunction.Objectives: The aims of the study are: 1) evaluation of STE parameters in acromegalic patients at diagnosis and during the follow-up; 2) apprai...

Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) is a common endocrine disease mainly caused by a single parathyroid adenoma. Although the localization of the parathyroid adenoma is not a surgical criterion for parathyroidectomy (PTX), this is known to increase the cure rate and reduce the complication rate. Neck ultrasound and MIBI-scintigraphy are the first-line techniques to detect hyperfunctioning parathyroid tissue, however, they have some limitations including the operator-dependent s...

Introduction: Hypoparathyroidism (HypoPT) is a rare endocrine disease which is characterized by hypocalcaemia and undetectable or inappropriately low serum parathyroid hormone (PTH). Post-surgical HypoPT (PS-HypoPT) is the most common cause, caused by accidental parathyroid removal/injury during neck surgery. Conventional therapy with calcium and vitamin D analogues does not restore calcium homeostasis and patients with chronic PS-HypoPT complain with several complications. Fr...