Endocrine Abstracts

Insulinoma causes fasting hypoglycemia due to inappropriate insulin secretion. The diagnosis of insulinoma is based on Whipple’s triad (1. symptoms precipitated by fasting with 2. associated blood sugars of 50 mg/dl or less and 3. relief of symptoms by glucose administration) during a supervised 72 h fasting test. After introducing reliable assays for measurement of insulin and proinsulin, there is an ongoing debate whether a 48 h fasting test is sufficient for diagnosis ...

The German Acrostudy is at present the largest database on acromegalics (n=184) treated with pegvisomant (Somavert®). 91% pts underwent pituitary surgery, 45% received radiation therapy, and previous medical therapy included dopamine agonists (56%), octreotide (90%) and/or lanreotide (10%). Common concomitant diseases at baseline were hypertension (47.0%), diabetes mellitus (31.7%), and gallstone disease (25.6%). Efficacy analysis was performed in 134 pt...

Approximately 50% of patients with severe AGHD (defined by the international consensus criteria, peak GH <3 ng/ml) have a normal age- and gender-related IGF-I. It remains unclear whether in these individuals IGF-I is GH-dependent.We performed a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, cross-over study on the effect of pegvisomant (20 mg daily for 14 days) on the relationship between GH and IGF-I in 3 age-, gender- and BMI-matched cohorts (Norms:...

Approximately 50% of patients with severe AGHD (defined by the international consensus criteria, peak GH <3 ng/ml) have a normal age- and gender-related IGF-I. It remains unclear whether in these individuals IGF-I is GH-dependent. We performed a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, cross-over study on the effect of pegvisomant (20 mg daily for 14 days) on the relationship between GH and IGF-I in 3 age-, gender- and BMI-matched cohorts (Norms: 5 GHD patients with n...

The leptin receptor (ObR) exists in multiple isoforms. In humans, there is no mRNA encoding soluble receptor (LBP). We investigated the hypothesis that human LBP can be generated by proteolytic cleavage of membrane anchored leptin receptors (ObRb and ObRa). LBP, of similar size to that previously detected in human serum, was detected in medium of cells transfected with ObRa by HPLC, Immunofluorometric assay, and Ligand mediated immunofluorometric assay, but not by ELISA. The L...

C Strasburger, Charite Campus Mitte, Berlin, Germany AbstractSince 2003 Christian J Strasburger has been Division Chief and Professor of Clinical Endocrinology at the Department of Medicine at Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany. He graduated from the Medizinische Universität Lübeck, Germany and trained in internal medicine and endocrinology at the Universities of Lübeck and Munich. He ...

Background: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is recognized as common liver disorder that represents the hepatic manifestation of the metabolic syndrome including visceral obesity, type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance and hyperlipidemia. Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is the progressive form of liver injury with the risk for progressive fibrosis, cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease. The pathophysiology that leads to NAFLD and NASH is not well understood. We hypo...

Background: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is recognized as common liver disorder that represents the hepatic manifestation of the metabolic syndrome including visceral obesity, type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance and hyperlipidemia. Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is the progressive form of liver injury with the risk for progressive fibrosis, cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease. The pathophysiology that leads to NAFLD and NASH is not well understood. We hypo...

Background: Acromegaly is associated with significant excess morbidity and mortality. Surgery and radiotherapy (including radiosurgery) aim to reduce the burden of growth hormone excess while preserving normal pituitary function, but their effective deployment is dependent on high quality imaging that allows accurate localization of site(s) of active de novo or residual/recurrent disease. Despite the existence of several comprehensive guidelines on the managem...

Background and aim: Aryl hydrocarbon receptor-interacting protein (AIP) is evolutionary conserved and widely distributed throughout organism. Broad interest for AIP comes from involvement of loss-of-function AIP mutations in pituitary adenoma pathogenesis. The role of AIP in normal pituitary function is largely unknown. AIP is co-localized with GH in somatotroph secretory vesicles. Serum AIP protein was proteomically identified. We aimed at investigating whether AIP and GH are...