Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Active acromegaly is characterized by decreased insulin sensitivity (ISen). However, insulin secretion (ISec) may not increase satisfactorily to compensate for the low ISen.Aim: To assess ISen and ISec and to calculate disposition index (DI) using an intravenous glucose tolerance test (IVGTT) in patients with active acromegaly.Methods: Twelve patients (7 men, 5 women) with active acromegaly and 2 normal subjects (2 men)...

Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) is a rare neuroendocrine tumor derived from the thyroid C cells producing calcitonin, ac-counts for 0.6% of all thyroid cancers. It occurs either sporadically or in a hereditary form (RET mutation). MTC can be cured only by complete resection of the thyroid tumor and any loco-regional metastases. Calcitonin (CT) measurement is crucial to the early diagnosis and the follow-up of MTC. If the evaluation of stimulated CT levels is required, a prov...

Aim: Somatic growth results from the generation of new support and connective tissue. Since collagen is the major protein constituent of connective tissue, its synthesis must be a prerequisite for the normal growth. The aim of the study was to determine age-related reference intervals for P3NP, a collagen – formation marker in a group of normal height prepubertal children and to compare to IGF1 levels.Subjects: Forty-three prepubertal children, male...

Background: Screening for primary aldosteronism (PA) needs aldosterone-to-renin ratio (ARR) measurement, followed by confirmative tests.Aim: To assess the clinical value of captopril challenge test (CCT) in PA diagnosis.Methods: Thirty patients were screened for secondary endocrine hypertension; study group consisted in 15 PA patients (7M/8F, aged 44.6±13.3 years). Control group consisted in 15 patients (5M/10F) with negative ...

Introduction: Primary aldosteronism is associated with increased prevalence of cardiometabolic complications. The mechanisms are not fully elucidated, but an association with autonomous cortisol secretion could increase vascular and metabolic risk.Aims: To assess glucocorticoid axis in patients with primary aldosteronism as compared to patients with ACTH-independent Cushing syndrome and control hypertensive patients without gluco or mineralocorticoid exc...

Neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1) is a rare disease determined by mutations in the RAS-MAPK pathway. It can cause precocious or delayed puberty.Case 1: A 11 years 9 months old girl known with Neurofibromatosis – Noonan Syndrome (NF-NS) was admitted for severe growth deficit (-5.14 SDS). She had over 20 café au lait spots, hypertelorism, pterigium colli, B1 P1. At 18 months she had had surgery for pulmonary stenosis and after that a left ventricular tum...

Introduction: BRAF V600E mutation is reported to occur in 28–83% of papillary thyroid cancer, being associated with increased tumour aggressiveness.Objective: To determine the prevalence of BRAF V600E mutation in Romanian patients with thyroid nodules referred to surgery in a reference endocrinology centre.Materials and methods: 140 patients were included in the study: 70 patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), 42 pat...

Acromegaly control/remission is defined by stringent criteria: normal age-/sex-adjusted IGF1 and random GH (GHr) <1 ng/ml or a GH nadir (GHn) during oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) of <0.4 ng/ml. However discordances between GH and IGF1 have been recorded in about 30% of patients. We retrospectively analyzed the evolution in patients with acromegaly and discordant GH–IGF1 levels while being treated with somatostatin analogs (SSA) and/or cabergoline (CAB).<p...

N-terminal peptide of type I procollagen (P1NP) is a marker of GH (hGH) anabolic action on bone formation. We evaluated the diagnostic value of P1NP in GH deficiency (GHD) in the transition period using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) plot analysis. We compared the diagnostic value of P1NP with IGF1. 16 male patients (chronological age, 16.6–21.5) with GH replacement therapy during childhood (ten IGHD and six MPHD) were evaluated at minimum 3 months after completi...

Introduction: An improvement of survival in patients with acromegaly was claimed in the last years, with multimodal new therapies.Aims: To assess cure rates of different therapeutic protocols and the impact of these therapies on survival.Methods: 334 patients (224 F/110 M, mean age 48.1±0.7 years) with acromegaly admitted in a single Neuroendocrinology Department between Jan 2001 and Dec 2013 were retrospectively studied by GH...