Endocrine Abstracts

Hypoxia inducible factor-1alpha (HIF-1α) is a transcription factor regulating expression of many genes related to oxygen homeostasis in response to hypoxic stress. RSUME is a sumoylation enhancer, which was recently cloned from a pituitary cell line with an increased tumorigenic and angiogenic potential. It has been shown that RSMUE is induced by hypoxia and enhances the sumoylation of HIF-1α. Although many studies demonstrated that the level of HIF-1α is remark...

Objective: Despite a wide variety of differential diagnosis, modern MRI imaging usually enables a good preoperative evaluation of the aetiology in most cases with scull base and sellar lesions. However, in some cases MRI visualization alone may also be misleading with a consecutive need to adapt intraoperative strategies.Clinical presentation: The case of a 67-year-old male patient with the history of a bacterial meningitis, visual deterioration and the ...

Due to its rarity, initial endocrine abnormalities in acromegaly are difficult to investigate in a large cohort, especially with respect to cofounding variables. We searched the German Acromegaly Register for data on the first presentation of patients with acromegaly.Up to November 2005, 1485 patients with acromegaly had been entered into the database. Male patients demonstrated significantly higher random GH (21.0 (0.2–620.0) ng/ml, median (range))...

Introduction: The incidence of water and electrolyte disturbances following traumatic brain injury (TBI) is considerable and has been attributed to a dysregulation of the hypothalamic peptide arginine-vasopressin (AVP). Copeptin, the C-terminal part of the AVP prohormone, is stoichiometrically secreted together with mature AVP. Due to his long ex vivo stability, the AVP precursor, copeptin, can be used as a surrogate of AVP readily to be measured in serum or plasma. In ...

The German Acrostudy is at present the largest database on acromegalics (n=184) treated with pegvisomant (Somavert®). 91% pts underwent pituitary surgery, 45% received radiation therapy, and previous medical therapy included dopamine agonists (56%), octreotide (90%) and/or lanreotide (10%). Common concomitant diseases at baseline were hypertension (47.0%), diabetes mellitus (31.7%), and gallstone disease (25.6%). Efficacy analysis was performed in 134 pt...

Corticotrophin-releasing hormone (CRH) stimulation test is used in the differential diagnosis of Cushing’s syndrome. Cushing’s disease tumours carry somatic driver activating mutations in the ubiquitin-specific-protease 8 (USP8) gene in almost half of the cases. The aim of the present study was to examine whether the USP8 mutational status in Cushing’s disease tumours influences the response to the CRH stimulation test. We did a monocentric, re...

The chemotherapeutic agent temozolomide (TMZ) has been applied for the treatment of pituitary carcinomas, atypical pituitary adenomas and prolactinomas resistant to dopamine agonist treatment with considerable success. Both shrinkage of the tumors and a drop of excessive hormone production were observed in TMZ-responsive patients. In order to clarify whether the TMZ-induced suppression of hormone secretion was a consequence of tumor shrinkage or caused by direct effects on hor...

Background: Pituitary apoplexy (PitApo) has significant associated-morbidity and its management is not yet standardised.Aim: To describe prevalence and characteristics of PitApo patients in GH deficient (GHD) patients compared with two control populations.Patients and methods: Patients with ‘infarction-apoplexy’ GHD aetiology code were identified from Pfizer International Metabolic Database (KIMS). Baseline characteristic...

Introduction: Growth of the tongue and mandible and dental pathologies are recognized consequences of untreated growth hormone excess in acromegaly. However, data on the frequency of the individual oro-dental pathologies are sparse. We, therefore, developed a self-report questionnaire on typical oro-dental changes, therapeutic measures, costs for prosthetic treatment and the role of dental professionals in the diagnostic process of acromegaly.Methods: Th...

Objective: The German KIMS Database is a national surveillance study for evaluation of efficacy and safety of growth hormone (GH) replacement therapy in adults with GH deficiency (GHD) in clinical practice.Patients: The analysis was performed using data of 1425 consecutively documented adult patients (777 men, 648 women) with GHD enrolled in KIMS Germany. The present report examined baseline and long term data (>48 months, range: 48–161 month) f...