Endocrine Abstracts

Objectives: Recent evidence suggest that environmental pollution may be involved in the worldwide increase of thyroid cancer (TC) incidence occurred over the last few decades. Indeed, some environmental pollutants, namely endocrine disruptive chemicals (EDCs), have been linked to endocrine system disruption, including thyroid dysfunction, and increased risk of TC. Several EDCs are known to be Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) due to their long half-life in the environment, ...

FAM83B has been recently identified as an oncogene involved in the development and progression of several malignancies, but its role in thyroid cancers (TC) is still unclear. In the present study, we examined the expression of FAM83B and its possible involvement in cell migration and differentiation, in neoplastic and normal thyroid tissues and in TC human cell lines. We found that FAM83B expression in TC varies according to tumor histotype, being si...

Introduction: Cells with stem-like properties have been reported in benign and malignant thyroid diseases, and can be propagated by culturing them as non-adherent spheres.Design: Aim of the present study was to widely characterize the stem-like cells in tumor and normal thyroid tissues and in the corresponding in vitro-cultured thyrospheres, and to investigate in vivo the proangiogenic potential of thyrospheres in a zebrafish model....

It is known that high levels of TSH are associated with higher miscarriage risk, though the precise TSH cut-offs are debated. Aim of the present study was to evaluate if pre-conceptional TSH levels associate with increased risk of early miscarriage in a large series of infertile women submitted to IVF and to determine the threshold of TSH associated with the highest prevalence of pregnancy loss. We retrospectively studied 1484 infertile women (mean±age 36.7±4.1 years...

TERT promoter mutations (chr5: 1 295 228C>T e chr5: 1 295 250C>T) were recently described in thyroid tumors, with a prevalence ranging 8–25% in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC). We and others reported that these mutations strongly associate with a poor outcome in differentiated thyroid cancers. Aim of the present study was to further investigate the prognostic role of both TERT promoter (TERTMUT) and BRAF<...

Thyroid cancer is highly prevalent in women aged 15–44 years, suggesting that in females the fertile age could be regarded as a risk factor. Consistently, in the last decades epidemiological and experimental findings indicated a possible role of oestrogens in the development and progression of differentiated thyroid tumours. We studied the expression of oestrogen receptor α (ER α) and Progesteron receptor (PR) in 182 female and male patients with papillary thyro...

Background: Calcitonin (CT) is the most sensitive marker for MTC diagnosis. By the way, many pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytical pitfalls worsen its accuracy. Procalcitonin (proCT), a CT precursor, has been suggested as a valuable complementary test in MTC diagnosis, given its stability and the reproducibility between different assay kits.Material and Methods: basal CT (bCT) and proCT (bproCT) and stimulated CT (bCT) and proCT (sproCT) (2&#821...

Introduction: Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is the most common endocrine malignancy, with a steadily increasing incidence in the last few decades worldwide. Studies revealed the predisposition to PTC by the heterozygous state of rs2910164 within the precursor of microRNA146a. Interestingly, on the same chromosome, 40Kb separate the pre-miR-146a from the pituitary tumour transforming gene (PTTG1), a proto-oncogene involved in thyroid carcinomas. A genome-w...

Since the first identification of DUOX2 as an actor in the pathogenesis of congenital hypothyroidism (CH), several mutations have been associated with transient or permanent CH, with a high intra- and interfamilial phenotypic variability. In the present study, we report clinical and molecular studies of 7 unrelated children and 2 couple of siblings affected with CH and partial iodide organification defect (PIOD).We identified nine novel and five previous...

Congenital hypothyroidism (CH) is frequently associated with congenital heart defects (CHD). Thyroid defects may have a higher prevalence in children with CHD as embryonic thyroid gland share nuclear transcription factors with heart and great vessels during organogenesis. We investigated thyroid function in 325 children (165 M/160 F, aged 0.2–15.4 years), affected by CHD. Patients with Down syndrome, recent administration of iodinated contrast agents, low T3 sy...