Endocrine Abstracts

Subject: Adrenal tumours (AT) are often detected incidentally and represent a variety of differential diagnoses with variable therapeutic consequences. We have recently developed [123I]Iodometomidate ([123I]IMTO), that specifically binds to adrenal CYP11B enzymes as a SPECT tracer for adrenal scintigraphy. This radiotracer is now evaluated in patients with adrenal tumours in an ongoing clinical trial. The study was approved by the ethical committee and pa...

Objective: Hypokalemic Conn’s syndrome is a rare disease with a prevalence of 0.5% in unselected hypertensive populations. However, recent studies indicate a higher prevalence of a milder variant of Conn’s syndrome, reaching 10% in some studies. Long term outcome and health care costs of hypo- and normokalemic variants are largely unknown. The National Conn’s Registry is an initiative to create a national database of sufficient epidemiological strength to invest...

Recent studies indicating that normokaliemic primary aldosteronism (PA) is a more frequent cause of hypertension than previously expected led to an increased interest in biochemical screening strategies. We investigated biochemical diagnostic strategies used in different academic centres for patients documented in the German National Conn’s Registry. Data from 7 centres in 5 cities have been entered into a database by trained personnel. For analysis, results from 522 pati...

Objective: Primary aldosteronism (PA) is associated with vascular end organ damage. We evaluated the newly established German Conn’s Register for evidence of renal impairment and compared the data with renal function from hypertensive subjects from an epidemiologic cohort.Methods: The registry was founded in 2006 and has at present 7 participating centres in 5 locations. Data are entered in a central electronic database. Up to July 2007 555 patients...

Objectives: Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare malignancy with incompletely understood pathogenesis and poor prognosis. Overexpression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) has been demonstrated in several tumors and is partly associated with a more aggressive phenotype and a worse prognosis. In addition, targeting the EGFR tyrosine kinase represents a successful new therapeutic strategy, e.g. in non-small cell lung cancer. Therefore, we investigated the role of EGF...

Objective: Patients with adrenal insufficiency (AI) have been found to have increased cardiovascular morbidity, partly associated with nonphysiologic glucocorticoid replacement.Design: We included two separate cohorts (cohort 1 and 2) of patients with chronic primary and secondary AI under standard replacement therapy and compared them to two age- and sex-matched population-based studies (SHIP-TREND/DEGS). Patient cohort 1 comprised 389 individuals asses...

Background: Only few cases of patients with adrenal disorders affected by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been reported so far. In this study, clinical outcome data of patients with adrenal disorders and COVID-19 infection has been collected by the ESE Rare Disease Committee and ENDO-ERN via the European Registries for Rare Endocrine Conditions (EuRRECa) project.Methods: This questionnaire included 32 questions on collecting quantitative and qua...

Background: Adjuvant mitotane therapy is frequently used in Europe following surgery for adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC). Management of adjuvant mitotane is mainly empirical and a major open question is the optimal duration of therapy, because no study has ever addressed this issue.Objective: We aimed to assess the outcome of ACC patients who were treated with adjuvant mitotane for at least one year following surgery and then discontinued therapy for othe...

Background: Sporadic aldosterone-producing adenomas (APA) are relevant cause of endocrine related hypertension in Primary Aldosteronism (PA). Next generation sequencing techniques have identified somatic mutations in APA harbored in KCNJ5, ATP1A1, ATP2B3, CACNA1D, CTNNB1 and PRKACA genes. Yet, a number of APA harbor no mutations in candidate genes (designated as wild type, WT) and little is known about genotype/phenotype correlation.Objectives: We invest...

Introduction: The regular diagnostic workup for primary aldosteronism (PA) can be very demanding and involves multiple invasive as well as time and cost intensive diagnostic tests. Here we have explored the value of urinary steroid metabolome analysis in the diagnosis and differential diagnosis of PA. Previously, urinary 3α,5β-tetrahydroaldosterone (THAldo) has been suggested as a reliable screening test for PA and serum 18-oxocortisol and 18-hydroxycortisol have bee...