Endocrine Abstracts

Acromegaly is known to be associated to an increased cardiovascular risk, due to the increased prevalence of glucose intolerance and dyslipidemia and pre-atherosclerotic lesions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of treatment with the GH receptor antagonist pegvisomant on cardiovascular risk and atherosclerosis in patients with acromegaly resistant to somatostatin analogues. Twelve patients (4 m, 8 f, 28–58 yrs) and 24 sex-, age- and BMI-matched controls en...

Germline mutations in the RET gene cause MEN2, an inherited cancer syndrome associated with medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC). We performed genetic analysis on DNA from whole blood of a 58 yr old female affected by a multifocal MTC. Exons 10, 11, 13, 15 and 16 of RET gene were amplified by PCR using specific primers and characterised by direct automatic sequencing. Here, we report a new RET point mutation: a heterozigous missense mutation Y606C, a G to A nucleotide substitutio...

Dopamine agonists have been used as first or adjunctive therapy for acromegaly for many years, but relatively few studies have assessed the efficacy of a newer agonist, cabergoline (CAB) alone or in combination with somatostatin analogues (SSA). The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of combined treatment with SSA plus CAB in patients with acromegaly and resistance to SSA, defined as lack of normalization of IGF-I levels after long-term (>1 year) and hig...

Introduction and Aim: Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is an endocrine disease closely related to several risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Previous study demonstrated an impaired cardiopulmonary functional capacity in PCOS women. The present study was performed to evaluate the effects of 3-months exercise training (ET) programme on cardiopulmonary functional capacity in young women with PCOS.Patients and Methods: The study was conducted according...

IntroductionIrisin is a molecule secreted from skeletal muscle and contributes to maintenance of metabolic homeostasis leading to increased energy expenditure and reducing the risk of obesity and diabetes. Literature data suggest that patients with Cushing disease have lower irisin values than controls and remission of hypercortisolism increases these values. Moreover, other plasma inflammation markers implicated in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, i...

Introduction: Endogenous hypercortisolism is associated with cardio-metabolic complications and promotes the deposition of lipids in different tissues, particularly in the liver. However, the prevalence of hepatic steatosis in patients with Cushing’s syndrome (CS) has been little investigated so far and only one previous study reported a prevalence of 20% using computed tomography. The aim of the study is to evaluate the prevalence of hepatic steatosis and the organ-speci...

Parathyroid glands regulate bone metabolism through PTH, while bone modulates parathyroid function through calcium and FGF23. Bone releases the matrix protein osteocalcin (OC), whose hormone function is increasingly evident. We tested the hypothesis that OC may modulate parathyroid function. The 6 hours-stimulation of human parathyroid cells derived from adenomas (PAds) (n = 5) with γ-carboxylated OC (GlaOC; 40–60 ng/ml) increased the expression levels ...

The association between acromegaly and increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality is widely recognised. The aim of this retrospective multicentric study is to evaluate the impact of different therapeutic approaches on the progression of cardiovascular risk (CVR) in acromegalic patients. At diagnosis and last follow up (follow up time of 13 ± 8 years),we assessed BMI, blood pressure, glycaemic and lipid profile, GH and IGF1 levels in 199 patients with acromegaly (116...

Introduction: Metoclopramide is known to exert stimulatory effects on catecholamine secretion, having been used in the past as provocative test in the diagnosis of pheochromocytoma. We describe a patient with an incidentally discovered pheochromocytoma after metoclopramide administration.Case report: A 64 years-old woman underwent total thyroidectomy for multinodular goiter with ‘follicular proliferation Thy 3’ at FNAB of the target nodule. The...

Introduction: Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) and C cell hyperplasia (CCH) have a variable clinical presentation and prognosis and few data are available on the correlation between immunohistochemical characterization (IIC) and clinical behavior.Aim: We studied the clinical and morphological characterization of CCH and MTC and we evaluated IIC expression of PTTG-1, SSTR2A, VEGFR-1, VEGFR-2 and VEGFR-3 in 23 cases of CCH and/or MTC, correlating it with ...