Endocrine Abstracts

The oestrogen receptor (ER) is a ligand-inducible transcription factor that controls expression of a number of genes in a wide variety of tissues. Binding of the natural hormone, oestradiol, triggers dimerisation and nuclear location of the receptor and assembly of a functional transcriptional complex through recruitment of various coactivators.In this talk, I will discuss how knowledge of the structure of the receptor has had a major impact on our under...

Background: Elastography is an ultrasound technique that allows to predict risk of malignancy of examined lesion by assessing their stiffness. Its effectiveness in thyroid nodules is equivocal which may result from insufficient standardization.Aim: Analysis of factors affecting the repeatability and reproducibility of elastographic measurements of thyroid nodules.Methods: 124 nodules in 118 patients were analyzed. Elastographic mea...

Background: Elastography is a procedure that widen diagnostic ultrasonography (US) but its significance in thyroid diagnostics has not been settled.Aim: Comparison of usefulness of elastography and conventional malignancy risk features (MRF) in the diagnostics of thyroid nodules, analysis of elastographic characteristics of follicular lesions of undetermined significance (FLUS).Methods: Analysis included 38 benign lesions (BL), 15 ...

Introduction: The isoform A of the human insulin receptor (IR-A) binds insulin with high affinity, and binds IGF-II with a 3–10 folds lower affinity. Cells lacking the insulin-like Growth Factor-I receptor (IGF-IR) and overexpressing the human IR-A (R-/IR-A cells) respond to IGF-II with reduced metabolic effects but unaltered or increased mitogenesis as compared to insulin stimulation. We hypothesized that this altered ratio of metabolic-to-mitogenic effects of IGF-II in ...

Aim: Evaluation of efficacy and safety of thyroid artery embolization procedure as a method of treatment of hyperthyreosis.Patient and methods: Since May 2004 to July 2005 the thyroid artery embolization procedures have been performed in 9 pts (7 women and 2 men) in mean age 62.3 (44 – 77). The reason for such a treatment were: hyperthyroid goiter with the other organs compression in 5 cases, Graves disease in 2 and thyrotoxicosis type I after amiod...

The insulin signalling system including the insulin receptor tyrosine kinase (IRTK) is evolutionarily ancient and appears in the first multicellular organisms (Cnidarians). The Drosophila melanogaster genome contains seven genes for insulin-like peptides (ILPs) that are expressed in neurosecretory cells in a highly tissue- and stage-specific pattern, DILP1-7. There is however only one IRTK (dIR). This system is important in the regulation of metabolism, growth, reprod...

The insulin signalling system including the insulin receptor tyrosine kinase (IRTK) is evolutionarily ancient. The Drosophila Melanogaster genome contains seven genes for insulin-like peptides (ILPs) that are expressed in neurosecretory cells in a highly tissue- and stage-specific pattern, DILP1–7. There is however only one IRTK (dIR). This system is important in the regulation of metabolism, growth, reproduction and lifespan. We reported in 2011 the crystal stru...

Diagnosis and treatment of Cushing’s disease is one of the greatest challenges of modern endocrinology. This is related to the fact that pituitary corticotropinomas are small tumours that are difficult to visualize in magnetic resonance imaging (MR). In about 40% of patients with Cushing’s disease, MR scans of the pituitary gland do not reveal any changes. The method that allows to localize the source of adrenocorticotropin (ACTH) secretion is bilateral inferior pe...