Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Silent corticotropic adenoma (SCA) is defined by the absence of clinical manifestations of Cushing’s disease despite the presence of ACTH and/or its precursors in tumor cells. It is a rare entity that represents 10% of pituitary tumors. It is known for its increasing expansion. Its clinical presentation is dominated by symptoms of tumor mass effect. We report the case of a silent corticotropic adenoma revealed by headache.Case report:...

3-iodothyronamine (T1AM) is rapidly catabolized to iodothyroacetic acid after few hours by serum proteins. To avoid a rapid metabolism during any treatment, DMEM devoid of FBS has been used, inducing changes in the cell culture environmental. We evaluated the uptake and the metabolism of different concentrations of T1AM, in presence of supplemented medium, and the presence of 3-iodothyroacetic aldehyde (Ald), a putative intermediate of T1AM catabolism to TA1.<p ...

Introduction: Current guidelines for the management of asymptomatic primary hyperparathyroidism (A-pHPT) recommend that 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels should be assessed in all patients and vitamin D deficiency (VDD) should be cautiously corrected. It is unknown whether VDD affects the probability to meet surgical criteria currently proposed for A-pHPT. Aim of study was to evaluate whether VDD recognition affects the probability to meet surgical criteria in A-pHPT patients.<p ...

SUMOylation is a post-translational protein modification involved in the regulation of essential cell functions. Our group found several SUMO-1 and SUMO-2/3ylated proteins in human ejaculated spermatozoa (Marchiani et al. 2011). We showed that SUMO-1 is mainly present in live spermatozoa and the percentage of SUMOylated spermatozoa was inversely correlated with total and progressive motility. SUMOylated proteins are mainly located in the nucleus and in the midpiece. T...

CATSPER is a family of sperm-specific calcium channels activated by P in human spermatozoa (Lishko et al. 2011, Strunker et al. 2011). KO mice for CATSPER are infertile due to severe defects in sperm motility.We studied the involvement of CATSPER in human sperm motility and P responsiveness.Western blot analysis with an anti-CATSPER1 antibody demonstrated the presence of three major bands corresponding to CATSPER1...

This is a case of a 49 year old obese Caucasian female who was referred to an endocrinology clinic for investigation of Cushing’s syndrome, based on raised blood pressure and cushingnoid facies. The patient had underlying schizophrenia and was stable on clozapine. Her blood pressure was 150/99 mmHg on bendrofluoriomethiazide and candesartan. Her 24 hour urinary free cortisol was normal but 24 hour urinary free noradrenaline was elevated at 835 nmol (76–561) with norm...

Thyroid incidentalomas was defined as newly identified thyroid lesions encountered during imaging study for non-thyroid diseases. In the last years, the use of FDG-PET/CT for staging of metastatic diseases was increased. The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the FDG-PET/CT uptake, to identify a SUVmax cut off predictive of malignancy and to determine the FDG-PET/CT prognostic role in patients with thyroid incidentalomas. 42 patients (ptx) with incidental thyroid ...

Ramadan is a month for Muslims during which they abstain from eating, drinking and smoking from dawn to sunset. The recommendations regarding the safety of fasting for type 2 diabetic patients have been based on expert opinion rather than evidence based medicine and sometimes controversial. In this study, we looked at the effect of Ramadan fasting on glycaemic control of type 2 diabetic patients on oral hypoglycaemic agents.Eighty-eight diabetic patients...

Circadian rhythms in behaviours and gene expression are driven by the autonomously rhythmic cells of the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). In nocturnal rodents, restricting a daily meal to the lights-on phase, leads to entrainment of behaviour and gene expression in many extra-SCN hypothalamic nuclei and peripheral tissues. This anticipatory activity is independent of the SCN and is likely to arise from the activities of multiple hypothalamic centres including the do...

Objective: Aromatase, the key enzyme involved in estrogen synthesis, is expressed in a variety of cells and tissues including human peripheral blood leukocytes (PBLs). The present study was designed to evaluate PBL aromatase gene expression in male and female elderly subjects compared to young male controls.Design: CYP19A1 mRNA and protein were measured in PBLs obtained from young men (n=13) aged < 35 years, postmenopausal women (n</...