Endocrine Abstracts

Biological agents have been successfully introduced in the therapeutics of autoimmune diseases, in particular rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis. However, their use has been found to increase the risk of serious infections and neoplasms. Infliximab, a neutralizing antibody to tumor necrosis factor-alpha, appears to be effective therapy in ankylosing spondylitis. Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) plays an important role in host defense and tumor growth control. Therefore...

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a multifactorial multisystem autoimmune disorder. Although the survival of SLE patients has been improved with the administration of immunomodulatory therapy, patients seem to suffer from complications of the disease such as atherosclerosis. Lipoprotein Lp(a) is a known risk factor for the development of atherosclerosis.The aim was to evaluate lipoprotein Lp(a) and its relationship with disease activity in patients w...

Epidemiological studies show increased mortality in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). One of the causes of death in RA patients is cardiovascular disease. Lipoprotein Lp(a) appears to be an independent risk factor for the development of cardiovascular diseases. The aim of the study was to evaluate serum lipid and lipoprotein Lp(a) levels in patients with RA.Patients with RA, n=50, aged 24–65 years and healthy controls, n=50 were...

The presence of lipomas is a characteristic of the syndrome of multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1. The presence of myxomas, however, is a characteristic of Carney syndrome.The aim of the study is the description of a patient with the syndrome of multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 who presented with a malignant angiomyxoma.A male patient, aged 42 years, presented with intense gastric complaints and was diagnosed with a gastroduode...

Well differentiated thyroid carcinoma is associated with prolonged survival in terms of decades and anaplastic carcinoma is associated with survival in months. Intermediate malignancy with a more guarded prognosis is also known to exist.The aim was to describe the case of a patient with a mixed papillary, poorly differentiated and anaplastic thyroid carcinoma.A female patient, aged 73 years presented with a multinodular goiter and ...

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a multisystem multifactorial autoimmune disorder. The survival of SLE patients has been improved by the administration of immunomodulatory therapy. Patients, however, are affected by late onset complications of the disease such as atherosclerosis. Lipoprotein Lp(a) is a known risk factor for the development of atherosclerosis.The aim was to study Lp(a) levels and their relationship with disease activity in SLE patien...

Epidemiological studies indicate that rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients have increased mortality. Cardiovascular disease seems to be one of the major causes of death in patients with RA. Lipoprotein disorders are observed in patients with systemic autoimmune disorders as well as in patients with RA. Lipoprotein Lp(a) is an independent risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease.The aim of the study was estimate lipoprotein Lp(a) levels and...

Fine needle aspiration is used extensively in the diagnostic evaluation of thyroid nodules. However, its diagnostic efficacy may be reduced by non-diagnostic findings. The aim was to study the effect of nodule size on the diagnostic efficacy of ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration biopsy in thyroid nodules.Ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration biopsy was performed in 210 patients with thyroid nodules. Cytology results were compared to nodule size....

Ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration biopsy is used extensively in the diagnostic evaluation of thyroid nodules. However, its diagnostic efficacy is hampered by the presence of non-diagnostic cytology results.The aim was to study the effect of previous thyroxine suppression therapy on the diagnostic efficacy of fine needle aspiration biopsy in thyroid nodules.Ultrasound-guided aspiration biopsy was performed in 45 patients, 31 ...

Adrenal carcinoma is a rare neoplasm with poor prognosis. Mitotane (o,p′-DDD) is the only known therapeutic agent with action on the adrenal. Although it has been used for many decades, its pharmacological properties and exact mechanism of action are still debated. It has been suggested that its therapeutic effect is dose-dependent (Baudin et al 2001). High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) has been used for the exact measurement of mitotane dose.<p cla...