Endocrine Abstracts

Pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors (PNTs) comprise a spectrum of neoplasms, ranging from low grade carcinoids to the highly malignant small cell lung cancers. Several studies identified cytoskeleton protein Filamin A (FLNA) as determinant in cancer progression and metastasis. To date, the role of FLNA in PNTs aggressiveness and progression is still unknown.To address this question, we decided: i) to evaluate FLNA expression in PNTs ranging from typical carc...

The cut-off values able to differentiate between reactive or neoplastic C cell hyperplasia (CCH) or to predict sporadic medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) are still debated both for basal and stimulated calcitonin (bCT and sCT). Aim of the present study was to define the prevalence and the histological patterns of CCH in 15 patients with multinodular goiter (MNG), bCT>10 pg/ml and sCT levels >50 pg/ml. These data were compared with those from 16 patients with MNG and bCT l...

The two regulatory subunits (R1 and R2) of PKA are differentially expressed in several cancer cell lines and studies indicate distinct roles for these subunits in growth control. Recently, mutations of the regulatory subunit 1A of PKA gene have been identified in patients with Carney complex (CNC). The aim of this study was to evaluate the expression of the different PKA regulatory subunits (R1A, R2A, R2B) in adrenocortical tumors not associated with CNC, as well as the effect...

Introduction: Papillary Thyroid cancer (PTC) accounts for 80% or more of all thyroid malignancies and genetic alterations associated with the development and progresion of this type of carcinoma remains largely unknown. Chromosomal band 11q13 seems to be one of the most frequently amplified regions in human cancer. Allelic imbalance involving EMSY, CAPN5 and PAK1 loci in thyroid cancer, have never been investigated. The aim of our study was to investigate the existence of alle...

BackgroundIn lipodystrophy (LD) adipose tissue function is impaired, leading to a severe metabolic syndrome. Familiar Partial LD (FPLD) type I (Kobberling Syndrome) overlaps with Cushing’s syndrome phenotype. The latter and the metabolic impairment observed in FPLD1 may suggest a crosstalk between the HPA axis, assuming that leptin sensitivity is preserved in this context. We aimed to evaluate if leptin levels are associated with glucocorticoid acti...

Objectives: Well differentiated thyroid cancers (WDTC) are generally sensitive to first line treatments or eventually to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). However, a part of WDTC together with poorly differentiated (PDTC) and anaplastic (ATC) thyroid cancers are particularly aggressive and refractory to all treatments, TKIs included. Since TKIs resistance is proven to be related with the presence of TP53 mutations in other tumours, and TP53 alterations are f...

Parathyroid carcinomas (PCas) are rare endocrine malignant neoplasia characterized by an abnormal PTH secretion and, consequently, severe and uncontrolled hypercalcemia. Clinically, the preoperative diagnosis can be misleading, because PCas share some molecular and clinical similarities with benign lesions and are often indolent. The histological diagnosis of carcinoma is achieved based on the presence of mitotic nuclear figures, capsular invasion, parenchyma infiltration, vas...

Aim: To evaluate: 1) clinical and epidemiological characteristics of outpatients transitioned from Pediatrics Endocrine (PED) to Adult Endocrine Department (AED) in a tertiary Centre; 2) transition process characteristics, and predictive factors of drop-out.Patients and methods: Demographic, clinical, and transition features of 170 consecutive patients with paediatric onset of chronic endocrine or metabolic disease (excluded type 1 diabetes) who transiti...

Aim: The uncertainty on the management of small adrenal incidentalomas (AIs) in guidelines still represents a challenge in real clinical practice. The aim of the study was to identify risk factors for morphological or functional changes during follow-up by using clinical, radiological, and pathological features.Methods: We retrospectively evaluated demographic (gender and age at diagnosis), clinical (weight, height, body mass index, smoking habit, comorb...

Purpose: Diagnosis of adrenal lesions requires hormonal investigation and morphological characterization; when CT and MRI imaging are equivocal, 18F-FDG-PET/CT could be a useful tool, although sensitivity and specificity varied among cohorts. The use of tumour-to-liver maximum standardized uptake values (SUVratio) was found to be accurate, but the best threshold value has not been identified yet. A SUVratio > 1.5 was associated with malignancy with a good performance. The ...