Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: There are high levels of anterior pituitary hormones in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), i.e. beyond the blood–brain barrier, in many patients with pituitary tumors.Aim: To assess the influence of CSF pituitary hormones on brain functions reflected by sleep architecture and sleep apnea.Method: Twenty-nine patients (17 women, 12 men) with pituitary adenomas (20 acromegaly, 5 nonfunctioning pituitary adenomas, 4 prol...

In acromegalic patients growth hormone (GH) excess induces insulin resistance but whether this is sufficient, in the face of normal insulin secretion, for pre-diabetes (impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and impaired glucose tolerance (IGT)) to occur is a matter of debate.Aim: To assess the relative role of insulin resistance and insulin secretion in the pre-diabetes of acromegaly.Methods: One hundred and twenty-four patients with acro...

Lanreotide has long been used in the therapy of GH secreting pituitary adenomas and other somatostatin receptor positive neuroendocrine tumors.Aims: To determine the impact on glucose metabolism of the 6 months of lanreotide therapy, beside of the antisecretory and antiproliferative effects.Patients and methods: Seven patients with active acromegaly treated with lanreotide, admitted in the Department of Neuroendocrinology, Institut...

Our initial studies suggested that plurihormonal cells are constantly found in early embryonic stages of human pituitary but are very rare later.Aim: A quantitative evaluation and morphological characterization of these plurihormonal cells.Methods: Pituitaries from therapeutically aborted human fetuses of 8–24 weeks, gestational age were fixed (with ethical permission) by immersion in 4% buffered formaldehyde. One-μm-thic...

Aim: To assess cumulative incidence and risk factors for amiodarone-induced thyroid dysfunction (AITD) in a large cohort of Romanian subjects.Subjects and methods: One hundred and forty-four patients (59 M/85 F), mean age 61.4±0.9 years, treated 2.4±0.2 years with amiodarone were assessed for TSH, TT3, TT4 (immunoradiometric assays) and FT4, TPO Ab (microenzymatic immunoassays). Thirty-three patients were reside...

Background: Acute right ventricular dysfunction (RVD) on echocardiography (ECHO) is critical for risk stratification in pulmonary embolism (PE). Plasma BNP, a consecrated marker of left ventricular dysfunction, could represent a valuable biomarker of RVD in PE.Aim and objective: Assessment of plasma BNP levels in patients with PE in relationship with right ventricular (RV) function evaluated by ECHO.Methods: Prospective study of 70...

Aim: To set up, in acromegaly without diabetes mellitus, a correlation between the disease activity in GH-secreting adenoma (AA) - assessed by minimum GH serum level during an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) - and severity of insulin resistance (IR), assessed by HOMA-IR index.Methods: 75 out of 88 consecutive patients with acromegaly hospitalized in our department were included in this study. 13 patients proved to have diabetes mellitus and were exclu...

Colocalisation of hormones has been demonstrated for growth hormone (GH) and prolactin in the normal adult human pituitary, and for many other hormones in pituitary adenomas. We have investigated whether colocalisation of GH and other hormones occurs earlier, during onto-genesis. Pituitaries from therapeutically aborted male human fetuses of 15–20 weeks gestational age (with ethical approval) were fixed by immersion in 4% buffered formaldehyde and divided in halves, one o...

Colocalisation of hormones in the adult human pituitary has been demonstrated only for growth hormone (GH) and prolactin (PL) and only for adenomatous tissue. We have investigated whether colocalization occurs earlier in ontogenesis. Pituitaries from male human fetuses of 16–22 weeks gestational age fixed by immersion in 4% buffered formaldehyde and embedded in LR Gold were processed for immunocytochemical double labelling with GH/FSH or GH/LH anti-rat and anti-human prim...

Introduction and objective: This study aims to report if hormone therapy modifies sleep architecture and dreams in menopausal women. Women with no hormone therapy for flushes usually present sleep deprivation and daily sleepiness as a result of nocturnal arousals. Estrogen and progesterone brain receptors can influence memory and cognition processes. Dreams modulators are cognition, socio-cultural factors, personality and brain physiology (REM/NREM percents, circadian influenc...