Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: Hypokalemic Conn’s syndrome is a rare disease with a prevalence of 0.5% in unselected hypertensive populations. However, recent studies indicate a higher prevalence of a milder variant of Conn’s syndrome, reaching 10% in some studies. Long term outcome and health care costs of hypo- and normokalemic variants are largely unknown. The National Conn’s Registry is an initiative to create a national database of sufficient epidemiological strength to invest...

Recent studies indicating that normokaliemic primary aldosteronism (PA) is a more frequent cause of hypertension than previously expected led to an increased interest in biochemical screening strategies. We investigated biochemical diagnostic strategies used in different academic centres for patients documented in the German National Conn’s Registry. Data from 7 centres in 5 cities have been entered into a database by trained personnel. For analysis, results from 522 pati...

Objective: Primary aldosteronism (PA) is associated with vascular end organ damage. We evaluated the newly established German Conn’s Register for evidence of renal impairment and compared the data with renal function from hypertensive subjects from an epidemiologic cohort.Methods: The registry was founded in 2006 and has at present 7 participating centres in 5 locations. Data are entered in a central electronic database. Up to July 2007 555 patients...

Current systemic treatment options for patients with ACCs are far from being satisfactory. DNA damage/repair mechanisms, which involve e.g. ATM/ATR-signalling or RRM1/RRM2 encoded ribonucleotide reductase (RNR) activation commonly contribute to drug resistance. Moreover, also the regulation of RRM2b, the p53-induced alternative to RRM2, is of unclear importance for ACC. Upon extensive drug screening, including a large panel of classical chemotherapies (doxorubicin, etoposide, ...

Objective: Patients with adrenal insufficiency (AI) have been found to have increased cardiovascular morbidity, partly associated with nonphysiologic glucocorticoid replacement.Design: We included two separate cohorts (cohort 1 and 2) of patients with chronic primary and secondary AI under standard replacement therapy and compared them to two age- and sex-matched population-based studies (SHIP-TREND/DEGS). Patient cohort 1 comprised 389 individuals asses...

The differential diagnosis between arginine vasopressin deficiency (AVP-D), known as central diabetes insipidus, and primary polydipsia (PP) is challenging. Psychopathologic findings are often used as a hallmark for diagnosing PP; thus. Yet, psychopathologic characteristics are barely assessed in patients with AVP-D, and to date, no data exist comparing AVP-D and PP with regard to these features. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to compare levels of anxiety, depression, alex...

Background: It is well established that life-long follow-up is required for patients with hereditary pheochromocytomas and paragangliomas (PPGLs), due to the potential of developing recurrent disease. However, whether follow-up of patients with sporadic PPGLs is necessary, remains unclear.Aims: To examine the prevalence and predictors of recurrent disease in patients with sporadic PPGLs.Materials and method: This multicenter study included retrospective ...

Introduction: Primary aldosteronism (PA) is the most common surgically curable cause for endocrine hypertension. Patients with unilateral aldosterone-producing adenoma undergo adrenalectomy (ADX). Clinical and biochemical outcome is assessed 6-12 months after ADX according to PASO consensus. To reduce unnecessary follow-up visits and change in medication for diagnostic purposes for potentially cured patients after ADX, a prediction tool is needed. Previous research had shown g...

Background: Primary adrenal insufficiency (PAI) has been associated with increased risk of infection, adrenal crises and a higher mortality rate. This is caused by altered circadian cortisol profiles, which ultimately lead to immune cell dysregulation. In this study, we aim to characterize differences in immunophenotype of PAI patients of three different etiologies.Methods: Cross-sectional single center study including 28 patients with congenital adrenal...

Background: Primary Aldosteronism (PA) is the commonest curable cause of hypertension. Whole exome sequencing (WES) of an aldosterone producing adenoma from a 46-year-old man with resistant hypertension revealed a novel somatic mutation (Val380Asp) of the single transmembrane domain of Cell Adhesion Molecule-1 (CADM1). A Gly379Asp mutation was identified by WES of a PA patient in Munich. Both patients were cured of hypertension by adrenalectomy.Method: A...