Endocrine Abstracts

Cushing disease and hypophosphatasia are rare conditions that may be both responsible of an important impairment of bone metabolism with increased fracture risk. We reported for the first time a case of a 43-year-old woman that came at our attention for recent onset of alopecia and amenorrhea. At the anamnesis, she denied any past relevant events and no drug assumption. At the physical examination, she presented rubeosis and facies lunaris and central adipose distribution (wai...

Monoclonal antibodies against the Programmed cell death-1 protein (PD-1) are a new treatment for advanced cancer. Endocrine and metabolic diseases are known to be frequently associated with this class of drugs. We describe two cases of Nivolumab-induced diabetes mellitus.Case 1: A 73-year-old man with a mutated BRAF-V600K advanced stage melanoma was treated with Nivolumab (240 mg IV every 2 weeks). He had normal-weight (BMI: 21.6 Kg/mq), and no previous ...

Introduction: Primary aldosteronism (PA) features a higher prevalence of cardiovascular events and renal complications as compared with essential hypertension. The effects of aldosterone excess on ascending aorta have never been investigated in human subjects.Methods: From August 2014 to December 2015, we enrolled forty-seven consecutive PA outpatients who had not undergone surgery of the adrenal mass. Hypercortisolism and pheochromocytoma were excluded....

Steroid testing has a central role in clinical decision-making and in research studies on diseases such as hypercortisolisms, female hyperandrogenism, male hypogonadism or inborn disorders of steroid synthesis. Recently, liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) proved its superiority to routine immunoassays (IA) in accurately and sensitively measuring low level steroids. However, the replacement of automated IA with LC–MS/MS platforms is limited...

Multiple pituitary hormone deficit and hypothalamic obesity are common complications after brain surgery for childhood tumors. Despite adequate replacement hormone therapy, obesity develops equally, but liver failure is not usually described. In this study, four subjects who had undergone surgery for brain tumors involving the peri-hypothalamic area when they were nursing or as youths (9 months, 6 years, 9 years and 20 years). They were referred to our Unit when they were 19, ...

The hormone assessment in saliva is emerging as a new valuable tool for clinical and research purposes. Salivary levels are supposed to reflect the free fraction of circulating steroids, thus representing a more informative indicator of their activity. Moreover, saliva collection is not stressful and does not require medical assistance, allowing reliable and multiple sampling in a day. Liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) technology offers high s...

Obesity is characterized by hyperactivated endocannabinoid System (ECS) in brain and periphery and by increased levels of circulating endocannabinoids (cECs), anandamide (AEA) and 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2AG). It is still debated whether in absence of obesity cECs are only modulated by adiposity or if they are associated with cardiometabolic parameters.We recruited 155 healthy normal weight (NW, BMI: 18.5–24.9 kg/m2) drug-free volunteers ...

Background: Subclinical Cushing’s syndrome (SCS) is defined as alterations in hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis without classic signs or symptoms of glucocorticoid excess. This condition has been associated to increased risk of adverse metabolic and cardiovascular outcomes, independently of other potential risk factors. However, is still not known if this condition could lead to a higher mortality respect to non-secreting adrenal masses (NSA).<p class="abs...

Increasing evidences indicate that brown adipose tissue (BAT) functional activity is reduced during obesity. The nature of this deficit in BAT function, however, is still poorly understood. To analyze whether insulin function in the BAT is altered during obesity, we studied the in vivo metabolic activity of BAT by PET/CT imaging and euglycaemic hyperinsulinemic clamp in lean and diet-induced obese mice. Three groups of mice were analyzed after administration of different diet ...

The aim of this epidemiologic study, performed in a wide population of high-school students in Northern Italy, was to obtain an unbiased estimate of the prevalence of hyperandrogenic states in adolescents and young females.2052 female students, aged 15–19 years, were consecutively contacted. 939/2052 (45.8%) refused to participate in the study, but 431 of the 939 non-participants (45.9%) agreed to fill out a brief questionnaire aimed to broadly asse...