Endocrine Abstracts

Active acromegaly is associated with significant comorbidity and reduced quality of life. Cross-sectional studies have shown that quality of life did not significantly change in long-term cured acromegalic patients. However, the effect of medical treatment on the quality of life in the short term is unknown.We evaluated the quality of life by a disease-specific questionnaire in a longitudinal study before and after a 6-month course with somatostatin anal...

Context: Therapy with somatostatin analogues (SSAs) may have deleterious effects on glucose metabolism in patients with acromegaly, often leading to development of diabetes mellitus (DM).Aim of the study: To evaluate whether DM, which developed during therapy with SSAs, may revert after drug withdrawal and cure of acromegaly with pituitary adenomectomy.Design: Retrospective cohort study, in a tertiary referral center.<p class="...

To investigate the blood pressure profile (BP) in active acromegaly and the effect of medical treatment of acromegaly on BP circadian rhythm, we studied 21 acromegalics before and after 3–60 months of treatment with somatostatin analogs (15/21) or pegvisomant (5/21) or both (5/21). Ambulatory 24-h BP was recorded. The 24-h mean BP (MBP), the mean systolic BP (SBP) and diastolic BP (DBP), the day-time (day) and night-time (night) MBP, SBP and DBP and the 24-h mean heart ra...

Introduction: Acromegaly is associated with alterations of glucose metabolism. The effect of somatostatin analogues (SMS) and pegvisomant (PEG) on glucose metabolism is still argument of debate.Study design: The purpose of this historical-prospective study was to compare, in a cohort of 47 patients with active acromegaly, the effects of SMS and PEG alone or in combination on glucose metabolism. All subjects were evaluated at baseline and at least 6 month...

Hyperinsulinemia has been associated to an increased risk of colorectal cancer and adenomas, while higher serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D3 and folate seem to reduce the development of colonic lesions in general population. Acromegalic patients have an increased risk of colonic tumors and an association between higher fasting insulin levels and risk of colonic adenomas has been previously demonstrated. No data are available about the influence of vitamin D and folate-homocysteine le...

Current therapies for acromegaly are unsatisfactory for some patients. High dose thiazoledinedines have been reported to shrink tumor size and reduce serum GH levels in animal models of acromegaly. To study the effects of increasing doses of rosiglitazone on serum GH and IGF1 concentrations in acromegalic patients, we designed a phase two clinical trial. We enrolled five consecutive patients with active acromegaly uncontrolled under conventional therapies. They received increa...

Amiodarone induced thyrotoxicosis (AIT) may develop in patients with either underlying thyroid disorders (type 1) or normal gland (type 2). The latter is considered a drug-induced destructive thyroditis, usually responding to glucocorticoids. Further treatments after restoring euthyroidism are often not necessary. The former is a true form of iodine-induced hyperthyroidism the management of which includes thionamides, potassium perchlorate and thyrodectomy. The prevalence of t...

Autosomal dominant hypocalcemia type 1 (ADH1) is a genetic disorder characterized by low serum calcium and low or inappropriately normal levels of PTH. It is caused by a heterozygous activating mutation of the calcium-sensing receptor (CASR) gene, resulting in decreased sensitivity of the receptor to low serum calcium. The aim of our study was to describe a series of patients with ADH1 followed at our outpatient clinic from 2011 to 2023. A total of 7 patients (4 femal...

Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1) is a rare autosomal dominant disorder, characterized by the predisposition to the development of multiple endocrine tumors mainly affecting parathyroids, gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tissues (GEP-NET) and pituitary (PT). Mutations of the MEN1 gene are responsible for the disease and may be inherited from one of the parents or more rarely can occur de novo. In children and adolescence there is a paucity of cl...

Prolactin-secreting (PRL) adenomas are about 40% of all pituitary adenomas. The most important clinical symptoms of PRL excess are gonadal and sexual dysfunction as a result of tumor expansion in patients with macroadenomas. Medical therapy of prolactinomas relies on the use of dopamine agonists which induce normalization of PRL levels and shrinkage of the tumor mass in the majority of patients. The present study evaluated whether doses of dopamine agonist inducing normalizati...