Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Remission by complete surgical tumour removal is not achieved in all patients with acromegaly and a subset of patients remain on long-term pharmacological treatment. Repeated surgery or targeted radiation therapy can be considered in patients with residual or recurrent tumour. Identification of residual or recurrent tumour available for surgical treatment can be challenging, and underreporting may lead to a loss in treatment opportunity. The aim of the present st...

Introduction: Patients planned for first time surgery for clinically non-functioning pituitary adenoma (NFPA) were included in this prospective study.Aims: – To study the prevalence of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis failure preoperatively and 3 months after surgery for clinically NFPA.– To investigate factors predicting risk of HPA axis failure postoperatively.Hypotheses<p class="abst...

Background: Real-time reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) has become the method of choice for quantification of gene expression changes. Inappropriate data normalization and inconsistent data analyses are some limitations of RT-qPCR. Pituitary adenomas are frequent tumours and the interpretation of increasingly published data within this field is hindered by the lack of a proper selection and validation of stably expressed reference genes.Ai...

Context: Angiopoietin-like protein 4 (Angptl4) is a protein involved in lipolysis, that is regulated by non-esterified free fatty acids (FFA). GH promotes lipolysis and increases circulating FFA. Hypothesis: GH increases circulating Angptl4 levels by modulating its expression and secretion from fat and muscle. Angptl4 might be of metabolic relevance for the insulin resistance associated with GH/IGF1 excess or deficiency.Objective: To evaluate Angptl4 in ...

Context: Adipose tissue distribution is closely related to metabolic disease risk. GH reduces visceral and total body adipose tissue mass, while inducing whole body insulin resistance.Objective: To assess the role of visceral adipose tissue and derived adipokines for the systemic insulin resistance and lipid metabolism, before and after treatment in acromegaly.Patients: Sixty-six adult patients with active acromegaly diagnosed betw...

Objective: In acromegaly, high GH/IGF1 levels are associated with abnormal glucose metabolism. Treatment with somatostatin analogues (SSAs) reduces the GH and IFG-1 levels. However, SSAs may worsen glucose homeostasis despite this, due to concomitant inhibition of insulin secretion. We studied the possible association between biochemical cure and glucose homeostasis in de novo patients with acromegaly.Design: Post hoc analysis from a ra...

Objective: Early postoperative results for the Preoperative Octreotide Treatment of Acromegaly (POTA) study has been published, and like later randomized studies we demonstrated a beneficial effect of presurgical treatment with somatostatin analogues (SSA) in GH-secreting macroadenomas when evaluated 3–4 months postoperatively. However, concerns about a potential lingering effect of SSA and thereby potential false positive results have been raised. The objective of this s...

Introduction: The effect of conventional somatostatin agonists (SA) on somatotroph pituitary adenomas is primarily mediated by somatostatin receptors (sstr) subtype 2. Sstr expression has been proposed as a prognostic marker for response to medical therapy. Earlier studies have shown lower sstr2a expression in SA treated adenomas, but selection bias could not be excluded.Objective: To assess the effect of SA on the immunohistochemical expression of sstr2...

Introduction: E-cadherins are found in epithelial tissue. Reduced expression in somatotroph pituitary adenomas has been demonstrated to correlate with dedifferentiated phenotype; reduced tumour size, increased invasiveness, and reduced somatostatin analog response. Recently, correlations between corticotroph tumour dedifferentiation and both E-cadherin immunostaining and reduced E-cadherin gene (CDH1) mRNA was demonstrated.Glucocorticoids induces ...

Background: Nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase (NAMPT)/PBEF/visfatin is a widely expressed cytokine with various effects on glucose and lipid metabolism, cell survival, and inflammation. Despite a favorable body composition profile, acromegalic patients present insulin resistance, increased cardiovascular risk, and higher incidence of secondary tumors.Aim: Based on its relation to glucose and lipid metabolism and inflammation we hypothesized that NAM...