Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Ghrelin - a growth hormone (GH) secretagogue - presents a circadian rhythm with higher nocturnal concentration (similar to GH). As daily ghrelin production depended on food intake and nutritional state, we decided to assess ghrelin concentration at 60th at 90th minute after falling asleep and at 6:00 am (after 12 hours of fasting), and compare the results to determine the differences between nocturnal and morning ghrelin release in short children, both with idiop...

Introduction: The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) with the use of 90Y-DOTATATE and the survival rate of patients with disseminated or non-operable neuroendocrine tumors (NETs).Methods: In the time period from June 2006 to October 2012, 70 patients were treated with PRRT in our department. The 90Y-DOTATATE therapeutic activity was calculated per total body surface area up t...

Disorders of calcium metabolism arise in a familial or sporadic setting. The resulting hypo- or hypercalcemia can induce serious clinical features. Calcium sensing receptor (CaSR) plays a key role in maintaining this balance and its molecular investigation is useful to determine the nature of a certain condition or to choose the appropriate therapeutic approach.In the present study we reported two clinical cases. A 16-year-old patient had a mild hypercal...

The first-line treatment of Cushing’s disease is surgery, although it is effective in inducing a long-term remission in around 50% of patients with Cushing’s disease (CD). Nowadays, no pituitary tumor-directed medical treatment is available with the exception of cabergoline, which has been recently demonstrated to control cortisol secretion without major side effects in around 40% of patients with Cushing’s disease. Cabergoline has been recently demonstrated to ...

Thyroid dysgenesis accounts for 75% of all cases of congenital hypothyroidism (CH), and includes thyroid agenesis or hemiagenesis, thyroid hypoplasia, and thyroid ectopy. Thyroid transcription factors TTF-1, TTF-2 and Pax-8, which are involved in the development of the thyroid gland and its normal migration, have been indicated as the best candidate genes but have been found to be mutated in a minority of cases. Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) protein is involved in several key events du...

Acromegaly is known to be associated to an increased cardiovascular risk, due to the increased prevalence of glucose intolerance and dyslipidemia and pre-atherosclerotic lesions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of treatment with the GH receptor antagonist pegvisomant on cardiovascular risk and atherosclerosis in patients with acromegaly resistant to somatostatin analogues. Twelve patients (4 m, 8 f, 28–58 yrs) and 24 sex-, age- and BMI-matched controls en...

Despite a wide spectrum of imaging diagnostics, GEP-NETs often stay undetectable until the time of dissemination. Removing of a primary tumour together with disseminated lymph nodes even with the presence of liver metastases is the most appropriate treatment to delay progression of the disease. SRS followed by RGS gives a possibility to detect occult GEP-NET intra-opratively. 99mTc-HYNIC/EDDA-octreotate, a somatostatin analogue with high affinity to sst2 was applied...

Dopamine agonists have been used as first or adjunctive therapy for acromegaly for many years, but relatively few studies have assessed the efficacy of a newer agonist, cabergoline (CAB) alone or in combination with somatostatin analogues (SSA). The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of combined treatment with SSA plus CAB in patients with acromegaly and resistance to SSA, defined as lack of normalization of IGF-I levels after long-term (>1 year) and hig...

Background and aims: Hypoglycemia can be a risk factor for adverse cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events. However, changes in platelets and coagulation hemostasis during hypoglycemia have not been extensively studied. During hypoglycemia, a wide spectrum of physiologic responses are activated that could have potential vascular biological effects. To date, the role played by catecholamines, the sympathetic nervous system, and neuroendocrine hormones on activating adhesion m...

Background: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is known to predispose offspring to metabolic diseases. However, the underlying mechanisms has not been thoroughly studied yet. The glucocorticoid receptor gene or nuclear receptor sub-family 3, group C, member 1 (NR3C1) may predispose to type 2 diabetes mellitus, metabolic syndrome and depression. NR3C1 gene showed significantly decreased methylation levels in cord blood and placenta from GDM women compared wit...