Endocrine Abstracts

Dopamine receptor type 2 (DRD2) agonists (DAs) are the first-choice treatment for PRL-secreting pituitary tumors due to their efficacy in reducing tumor size and hormonal secretion. However, DAs are poorly effective in non-functioning pituitary tumors (NFPTs), despite most of them express DRD2. No correlation between DAs clinical responsiveness and DRD2 expression was found, suggesting post-receptor alterations underlying resistance. DRD2 signaling pathways that control cell p...

The cAMP signaling pathway plays a major role in the pathogenesis of cortisol-producing adrenocortical adenomas (CPA). In adrenocortical cells cAMP induces dramatic changes in cell morphology accompanied by actin cytoskeleton rearrangements that precede steroidogenesis, the causal relationship between these events being still undefined. In this study we investigated cAMP effects on cytoskeleton rearrangements and steroidogenic response in mouse (Y1) and human adrenocortical tu...

In this observational, retrospective, multicenter study, we analyzed data from 300 patients with pituitary incidentaloma followed in two Italian Hospital Center. We observed a predominance of female patients (65%), with an a mean age at diagnosis of 49 years (higher in men than women, 57 vs 45 years old). The main reason to perform imaging were neurological symptoms not related to the presence of adenomas (56%). Most cases were microadenomas (56%), and macroadenomas were more ...

Introduction: Acromegaly is characterised by chronic exposure to high GH and IGF1 levels that leads to increased bone turnover. Regardless of BMD value, acromegalic patients seem to have an increased vertebral fracture risk probably due to a reduction of bone quality. Trabecular bone score (TBS) is a new index used for assessing bone microarchitecture. In this study TBS was used for the first time to analyze bone quality in acromegaly.Methods: 16 new acr...

Introduction: The optimal treatment duration for prolactinomas to minimize reccurences is not clear. 2011 Endocrine Society Guidelines suggested that cabergoline withdrawal may be safely undertaken after 2 years in patients achieving normoprolactinemia and tumor volume reduction.Materials and methods: We analyzed 74 patients (mean age=46.9±14.4, M/F=19/56, macro/micro=18/56) bearing a prolactinoma. Patients were divided in 3 groups: Group A (23) tre...

Endocrine Connections 2013 2 196–207. DOI: 10.1530/EC-13-0049...

Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) is a rare neuroendocrine tumor of the parafollicular thyroid C cells. Although somatostatin (SS) receptors (SSTs) are expressed by MTCs, treatment with octreotide, specific for SST2, has shown poor efficacy in reducing MTC proliferation, whereas pasireotide, a multi-receptor SS analogue with preferential binding to SST5, has recently demonstrated antiproliferative effects in persistent postoperative MTCs. In vitro data in human MTC ce...

Cancer cells and embryonic stem cells share many key biological properties and have common genetic signature: transcription factors regulating self-renewal and differentiation have been found expressed in human cancer cells. We focused our attention on TBX1, the gene involved in 22q11.2 microdeletion/DiGeorge syndrome, which is involved in heart, thymic and parathyroid cells differentiation.Real-time PCR, western blot and immunohistochemistry de...

Tumour-associated fibroblasts (TAFs) are important players in tumour formation, growth, enhancement and metastasis. We firstly investigated the TAFs component in human parathyroid neoplasia from patients with primary hyperparathyroidism. Alpha-smooth muscle actin (alpha-SMA) has been used to identify activated TAFs (myofibroblasts). Culturing explants from parathyroid adenomas (PA, n=5), large spindle-shaped alpha-SMA+ cells outgrew from explants and the expression of...

Introduction: Pituitary incidentalomas are lesions discovered on an imaging study performed for an unrelated reason. Their frequency varies among 0.2–38% and it is continuously increasing due to the development of neuroimaging techniques. The aim of the study is to investigate clinical and biochemical characteristics of 205 consecutive patients (70% female, mean age 53.6±18.2 years) with incidental pituitary adenoma (IPA) followed at our center from 1990 to present.<...