Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Follicular tumours of the thyroid gland include benign follicular adenomas, follicular carcinomas and the follicular variant of papillary carcinoma. Although, molecular markers are a promising area of research to differentiate thyroid neoplasms, there is ample room for improvement in the research and clinical applications in this field. Furthermore, the final diagnosis requires thyroid lobectomy. The present study examined whether a differential protein expressio...

Introduction: The Bethesda System for Reporting Thyroid Cytopathology is the standard for interpreting fine-needle aspiration (FNA) and created a new diagnostic category (III): ‘atypia of undetermined significance/follicular lesion of undetermined significance’ (AUS/FLUS). The risk of malignancy for this category has been ascribed of 5–15% but the real malignancy rate remains unclear and plays a key role to define appropriate management.Ob...

Introduction: Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a protein that has been linked to several cardiovascular risk factors and bone status. Stress and corticosteroid exposure can affect BDNF levels, although this has never been studied in Cushing’s syndrome (CS). The aims of this study were to establish if BDNF levels were reduced in CS and to check possible associations to cardiovascular risk factors and bone status.Methods: 52 patients (18 ac...

Introduction: Intraoperative identification of neck lesions in patients who have undergone previous neck surgery is particularly difficult, because of operative scarring and distorted anatomy. Radioguided occult lesion localisation (ROLL) involves the preoperative intratumoral ultrasound-guided injection of a radioactive tracer. In the present study, we investigated the efficacy of roll in two patients with papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) who underwent previous neck exploration...

Introduction: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short non-coding RNAs that regulate translation or degradation of target mRNAs. Therefore, miRNAs control gene expression in many biological processes, including proliferation, apoptosis, and differentiation. Deregulation of miRNAs expression is an important contributor to tumour development and progression. Even though several genetic and epigenetic lesions have been identified in human thyroid cancer, particularly in the papillary histoty...

Introduction: Plasma glucose concentration at 1h(1hPG) during an oral glucose tolerance test(OGTT) may be a better predictor of future diabetes mellitus(DM) than 2-h post load glucose concentration(2hPG). HIV-infected individuals may have differential risk of DM compared to the general population, and the optimal diagnosis algorithm for DM in HIV-infected persons remain unclear. We evaluated the agreement of the methods 1 hPG vs 2 hPG) for the diagnosis of pre-D...

Hyponatremia is a common disorder, especially among the elderly, and an important morbidity and mortality cause. Empty sella syndrome, on the other hand, is a rare entity, more common in women between their fourth and sixth decade of life, and endocrine dysfunction has been reported in 10–60% of the cases. A 68-year-old man, with a past medical history of essential hypertension and glaucoma, presented at the emergency room due to malaise, asthenia, somnolence and anorexi...

Introduction: Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) is a common endocrine disorder characterized by hypercalcemia due to an unregulated overproduction of parathyroid hormone (PTH). PHPT is most commonly caused by a single adenoma of the parathyroid gland, usually located just behind the thyroid gland. However, in rare cases, they can have an ectopic location, including intrathyroid adenomas. In some cases, the measurement of intact PTH in the wash out fluid obtained by US-Fine Ne...

Introduction: Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) and papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) are two distinct neoplasms originating from follicular and parafolicular-C cells, respectively. These pathologies have always been considered different from each other in terms of their incidence, their cell origin and their histopathological features. Concurrent occurrence of MTC and PTC in the same patient is an unusual event and its occurrence as true mixed medullary-follicular-derived car...

The parallel increase in the amount of environmental contaminants and in the prevalence of some human diseases has led to a growing interest in understanding how these compounds, so-called endocrine disruptors, may affect human health. In this scenario, the concept that obesity is the result of the interplay of genetic and lifestyle factors has been changing due to the growing evidence that environmental contaminants might alter endocrine function.Organo...