Endocrine Abstracts

Background: One of the major limits of gene therapy with sodium iodide symporter (NIS), which enables cells to be subjected to radioiodine therapy, is that NIS transfected cells rapidly release the intracellular iodine.Materials and methods: We transfected two human anaplastic (FRO) and medullary (TT) thyroid cancer derived cell lines, unable to take up iodine, with human NIS cDNA. The possibility of increasing the iodine retention time by treating cells...

We previously found that two cell lines (ARO and FRO) derived from anaplastic thyroid cancer and one (TT) deriving from medullary thyroid cancer did not respond to the retinoic acid (RA) treatment. We supposed that it was related to the lack of the RA receptor RAR beta mRNA expression. It has been suggested that the promoter methylation was one possible cause of loss of RAR beta expression.We analyzed the methylation status of RAR beta promoter in ARO, F...

Radioiodine-131 is commonly used for treatment of hyperthyroidism, however the effects on testis function are not known. This prompted us to study testis function in hyperthyroid men after 131I treatment. 15 hyperthyroid patients scheduled for 131I treatment underwent: testis US, hormone assessment and sperm analysis before and 45 days, 3, 6 and 10–15 months after 131I. The control group (for testis volume and semen analysis) was constitut...

The reported prevalence of RET somatic mutations in sporadic MTC is about 40–50% and the most frequent somatic mutation is Met918Thr in exon 16. MTC harboring a somatic RET mutation have been demonstrated to have a more advanced stage at diagnosis and a worse outcome. Although RET mutations are believed to be driving events in the MTC tumorigenesis only the finding of somatic mutations in microMTC can confirm this hypothesis.Aim of the present work ...

Several studies have identified a relationship between oncogene activation and dedifferentiation of PTC. Mutations of RAS, RET/PTC and BRAF modulate the expression of thyroid genes. An impaired NIS expression has been demonstrated in PTCs harboring the BRAFV600E mutation.Aim of this study was to analyze BRAF and RET/PTC1-3 alterations and their influence on the expression of thyroid differentiation genes. Seventy-one PTC samples were studied. Quantitative analysis o...

A high incidence of serum anti thyro-peroxidase antibodies (TPOAb) has been found in breast cancer (BC). Aim of this study was to evaluate the predictive value of TPOAb in BC. The study group included 47 women submitted to mastectomy for high malignancy degree BC (tumor size >5 cm and/or n° lymph-nodes >3), followed for 5 years. No patient had distant metastases. All were evaluated for thyroid disorders after breast surgery and before any anti-tumoral adjuvant the...

18FDG-PET is based on the capability of tumor cells to take up glucose. An increment in expression of the glucose transporter 1 (GLUT1) has been observed in thyroid tumors with poor prognosis but very few data are available about the expression of other glucose transporters in thyroid. Here, we study the expression and function of GLUT isoforms 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 in human thyroid carcinoma cell lines ARO and FRO (anaplastic carcinoma), NPA (poorly-differentiated papillar...

Germline point mutations of the RET proto-oncogene are causative of hereditary MTC. Somatic mutations are described in 40% of sporadic MTCs. Although a relationship between somatic mutations and bad prognosis has been described, data are controversial.No date on the prognostic value of RET polymorphisms are available.Aim of the work was to verify if the presence of a somatic RET mutation and or a polymorphisms can influence the prognosis of MTC. This stu...

In a previous study we demonstrated that retinoic acid (RA) decreased the growth only of thyroid carcinoma cell lines expressing RA receptor β (RAR β) and that decitabine (5-Aza-CdR) re-induced RARβ expression. The aim of this study was to analyze the effects induced by the combined treatment with RA and 5-Aza-CdR in the same thyroid cancer cell lines.We studied the effect of 5-Aza-CdR 800 nM and RA 1 μM on the expression of thyroid s...

Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHP) and growth hormone deficiency (GHD) are both associated with alterations of bone metabolism.GH secretion is frequently impaired in PHP patients; thus GH/IGF-I system alterations could be involved in the pathogenesis of osteoporosis.In the present study 50 post-menopausal women with PHP were evaluated by GH response to GH-releasing hormone (GHRH)+arginine (ARG) test and femoral neck bone mineral den...