Endocrine Abstracts

Background: In vitro and animal experiments have clearly demonstrated that excessive cortisol, GH and prolactin secretion, as well as dopamine agonists (D2As) and somatostatin analogs (SSAs), often prescribed for their treatment, affect the immune response and the onset/evolution of autoimmune diseases (AIDs) through direct and indirect complex mechanisms. Data from clinical studies are very scanty.Study aim: To assess the 1) distribution of AIDs accordi...

Background: Non-alcoholic liver disease (NAFLD) affects up to 30% of adults worldwide. With the prevalence of NAFLD increasing after menopause, women aged >55 years are more likely to progress to advanced fibrosis than men. Moreover, liver decompensation secondary to NAFLD is more frequent in women compared to men. However, the causes of these differential outcomes are not fully understood.Methodology: We performed a retrospective cohort study utilis...

Introduction: Recent studies found an increased cardiometabolic risk in patients with Non-Functioning Adrenal Incidentaloma (NFAI), but all these data have low quality of evidence.Objective: To establish whether cardiometabolic risk and complications in NFAI patients can be associated to the presence of a non-secreting adrenal tumor, independently from potential confounding factors.Subjects and Methods: In this cross-sectional and ...

: Patients with Cushing’s disease (CD) have increased cardiovascular risk due to metabolic alterations caused by glucocorticoids excess. Pasireotide, a multireceptor-targeted somatostatin analogue, is a therapeutic option in CD patients in whom surgery is not curative or not feasible. Pasireotide has been shown to be effective in controlling hypercortisolism and to improve metabolic features. Recently, the visceral adiposity index (VAI) has been proposed as a marker of vi...

Adrenal insufficiency (AI) requires life-long glucocorticoid (GC) treatment, which is associated with an increased risk of metabolic syndrome (MS), probably due to cortisol overexposure for multiple drug daily doses, together with an impairment of quality of life (QoL). Moreover treatment compliance (TC) is reported to be suboptimal in AI patients. The current study aimed at investigating the impact of the switch from twice/thrice daily conventional GCs to once daily dual-rele...

Somatostatin analogs (SSA) effectively control symptoms in neuroendocrine tumours (NET), besides showing antiproliferative activity. In progressive or metastatic NET, increasing SSA dose or shortening the dosing interval are common clinical practice, though empirical. Aim of this study is to evaluate efficacy and safety of high-dose SSA treatment in patients with progressive disease under standard SSA dose. Twenty-one patients (median age 56.8 years) with NET of different orig...

Introduction: Hyperprolactinemia is reportedly associated with an impaired metabolic profile, particularly in patients with concomitant hypogonadism. The current study aimed at investigating the effects of short (12 months) and long (60 months) treatment with cabergoline (CAB) on metabolic complications, metabolic syndrome (MS) prevalence and visceral adiposity index (VAI) in hyperprolactinemic patients.Patients and methods: Seventy-one patients (51 F, 2...

Interrelationships between HPA axis and sleep architecture are well documented and increased glucocorticoid levels seem associated with quantitative and qualitative sleep disruptions. The knowledge about sleep parameters in chronic hypercortisolism in humans is scanty. Our aim was to evaluate sleep efficiency in patients with Cushing’s syndrome (CS) at time of diagnosis, without ongoing specific therapy, using wrist actigraphy, a methodology that provides good estimations...

Object: In Addison’s disease (AD), although glucocorticoid (GC) replacement is essential for health and, indeed, life, several studies showed that conventional GCs doses are involved in metabolic and cardiovascular alterations observed in this disease. As the effects of GCs are mediated by the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), encoded by NR3C1 gene, different polymorphisms in the NR3C1 gene have been linked to altered glucocorticoid sensitivity in general population as well a...

Background and aims: Alterations of mood and depression may be associated with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and impaired glucose metabolism in non-diabetic people. Central serotoninergic activity may modulate glucose tolerance via neuroendocrine effectors. The serotoninergic tone was assessed by measuring the hormonal response to a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, citalopram, in non-diabetic subjects and patients with T2DM followed by either a traditional approach or a clinic...