Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: SIADH is a disorder of sodium and water balance characterized by hypotonic hyponatremia and impaired urinary dilution in the absence of renal disease or any identifiable non-osmotic stimulus known to relase ADH. SIADH is usually observed in hospitalized patients and its prevalence may be as high as 35%.Case Report: A 70 year old women was admitted to the Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinical Institute of Aosta on October 2011. She had a chan...

Introduction: Insulinomas are rare pancreatic NETs presenting with chronic hypoglycaemia. Current guidelines for diagnosis require a prolonged fasting test (72 h), which implies hospitalization and is difficult to perform, delaying prompt diagnosis and treatment. It has been reported that 65 to 85% of insulinomas could be diagnosed after less of a 24h fasting period and 94 to 95.7% within 48h, although a shorter test for diagnosis has not yet been standardized.<p class="ab...

Introduction: Although the pathogenic mechanism is not completely understood, pharmacological treatments could negatively affect seminal parameters. The analysis of inflammatory (i.e. cytokines) and oxidative stress parameters represent a new tools to investigate the causes of idiopathic male infertility. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of medications on oxidative stress, inflammatory parameters and semen characteristics in male with idiopathic infertility.</p...

Introduction: Sporadic neuroendocrine neoplasms (NEN) occur rarely in young-adult (YA) patients, with an estimated incidence is about 2.8 cases per million, and data specific to their epidemiology are limited. The aim of our study was to better characterize the natural history, prognosis and management of NEN in YA patients (≤ 35 years old) compared to adult-elderly (AE; >35 years old).Methods: A retrospective observational study including 204 ...

Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) is a rare type of tumor that originates from parafollicular C-cells and accounts for 3–4% of all malignant thyroid neoplasms. MTC presents as sporadic (75–80%) or inherited tumors (20–25%). Hereditary MTC is part of multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2 (MEN2). Aim of the study was to describe clinical presentation, prognosis and therapy of sporadic MTC patients. Sixty-seven patients (pts) with histologically confirmed MTC refe...

Neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) can be sporadic or can arise in complex hereditary endocrine disorders such as multiple endocrine neoplasias (MENs), familial paragangliomatosis (FPGLs), neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), von Hippel–Lindau disease (VHL), tuberous sclerosis (TSC). It has been estimated that hereditary NET occurrence varies with site of origin of the tumour, representing 5–30% of all cases of NET. These rates seems to be an underestimation and novel mutation...

Introduction: In addition to its well known effects on calcium homeostasis and bone metabolism, growing evidences shows that vitamin D plays an important role in regulation of cancer angiogenesis, cell apoptosis, differentiation, and proliferation. Vitamin D acts through vitamin D receptor (VDR), an intracellular nuclear receptor. It was found an association between different cancer histotypes and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of VDR. Despite the close relationship be...

Introduction: Acne is a common skin disease that occasionally can be influenced by endocrine abnormalities. In females, a clear relationship has been highlight between acne onset and peripheral insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia, whereas few data are available in male. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between acne and insulin resistance as well as other metabolic impairment in male subjects with acne.Methods/design: Twenty-t...

Background and objective: 111In-DPTA-Octreotide (Octreoscan) has limited spatial resolution and a somewhat lower receptor affinity of the radiopeptide compared to DOTATATE, a novel somatostatin analogue, which can be radiolabelled with 68Ga and adapted for PET imaging, resulting in an increased spatial resolution. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic performance of 68Ga-DOTATATE PET in patients with NET and to compare this tecni...

Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) accounts for ~5–10% of thyroid cancers. Intense efforts are currently directed toward the identification of new druggable targets for the treatment of MTC. The aim of this study was to investigate whether drugs acting at voltage-gated T-type calcium channels could affect hormone release and/or cell proliferation in a MTC cell line, the TT cells. The expression of the three isoforms of T-type calcium channels (CaV3.1, CaV3.2 and CaV3.3) wa...