Endocrine Abstracts

The adrenal glands secrete a variety of hormones from the cortex (steroids) and the medulla (amines) that when in excess lead to characteristic clinical syndromes. Dysregulation of the secretory pattern of these hormones or hypersecretion not enough to cause a clinically obvious syndrome is termed subclinical hyperfunction and is mainly found in primary adrenal lesions in the form of adrenal incidentalomas (AI). These are adrenal mass lesions usually >1 cm in diameter that...

Long-acting somatostatin analogs (SSAs) have long been used for symptom control in patients with functional neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) whereas two recent prospective studies (PROMID and CLARINET) have demonstrated their efficacy in controlling tumor growth in patients with gastrointestinal NETs of different tissue origin. For both purposes currently available agents (octreotide LAR 10–30 mg i.m and lanreotide autogel 60–120 mg s.c.) have been used. In case of refra...

Menopause is a state of relative hyperandrogenism resulting from the abrupt fall of estrogen levels due to ovarian senescence and the steady decline of androgen levels with aging. Frank hyperandrogenism, characterized by hyperandrogenemia and clinical hyperandrogenism, in postmenopausal women is most commonly the result of functional causes of hyperandrogenism, which usually pre-exist menopause from early reproductive years, and are aggravated by the physiological changes of m...

Case history: Mrs SC, a 56 year old female was referred to the endocrine registrar with hypocalcaemia (corrected calcium 1.93 mmol/l). She was day 3 post-hemihepatectomy for liver metastases from a primary pancreatic tail neuroendocrine tumour (NET). She had paraesthesia and numbness of her fingers and toes but no spasms. Chvostek’s sign was negative and there were no ECG changes. Past medical history includes severe hypercalcaemia in September 2016 which...

A 26-year-old Caucasian male presented to the joint infertility outpatients clinic with primary infertility. His medical history included hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) due to genetically confirmed MYH7 sarcomere protein mutation, treated with implantable cardioverter-defibrillator while his partner was a healthy 24-year-old Caucasian nulliparous female. Initial investigations showed hypertestosteronemia (Testosterone: >51.0 nmol/l) and azoospermia, hence the c...

Introduction: Autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD) and abnormal carbohydrate metabolism are the commonest endocrine disorders in the general population. However, the effect that AITD may exert in β-cell secretion and insulin action in patients pre-diabetes has not been investigated before.Methods/design: One hundred and eighty-two patients (157 females) 46.5±14.2 years with pre-diabetes (impaired fasting glucose (IFG) or/and impaired glucose toler...

Background and objective: Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia type 1 (MEN 1) is an autosomal dominant disease characterized by a broad clinical spectrum. Previous multi-center studies, that analyzed large groups of patients with MEN 1 have been reported before but long term follow up data of these patients focusing exclusively on primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) are scarce.Patients and Methods: In this retrospective cohort study we include all patients with P...

Purpose: Pheochromocytomas (PCs) and paragangliomas (PGLs) are rare neuroendocrine tumors arising from chromaffin cells of the adrenal medulla and the sympathetic/parasympathetic neural ganglia, respectively. Metastatic PCs/PGLs occur in about 5-26% of cases. Their management and diagnosis still remain a challenge due to their heterogeneity, the absence of guidelines and the few prognostic tools.Aim: The aim of this study was to describe clinical and gen...

Introduction: Ephrin receptors (EPHs) compose the largest known subfamily of receptors tyrosine kinases and are bound and interact with EPHs-interacting proteins (Ephrins). They have a role in tumor growth, invasion, angiogenesis and metastasis of several neoplasms. Aim of the study was to investigate the expression of EPH-A4, -A5, -B2 and -B5 in pituitary lesions. Material and Methods: Our study group consisted of 18 patients (9 males with median age 54...

Background: Metastatic pheochromocytomas (PCs) and paragangliomas (PGLs) are rare neuroendocrine neoplasms with a <1:106 incidence, defined by the presence of metastatic disease besides recurrent or locally invasive disease.Aim: Retrospective analysis of clinical, biochemical/hormonal, imaging, genetic and histopathological features of patients with malignant PCs/PGLs diagnosed over 15 years.Results: Thirteen patient...