Endocrine Abstracts

Background: The COVID-19 outbreak in Italy forced the health system to cancel all non-urgent outpatient activities, to avoid further spreading of the disease inside the healthcare facilities. At our institution, for cancer patients the hospital allowed treatments and consultations: the medical team, however, identified patients whose procedures could be postponed. Even after May 2020, the capacity for non-urgent thyroid surgeries was reduced. These events enhanced our efforts ...

Introduction: The relationship between SNPs of the FSHR gene and serum FSH has not been completely clarified. Genetic variants of the FSHB gene have been associated to variation in gene transcription and to serum FSH levels in men. An interesting joint effect of both FSHB −211G>T and FSHR 2039 A>G on male reproductive parameters has been recently observed. No data have been published on the effect of the FSHB −211G>T in combination with the FSHR 2039 A&...

Background: Postpartum depression (PPD) is a common mental health disorder with a major impact on maternal health and wellbeing and offspring development. Thyroperoxidase antibody (TPOAb) positivity is a major risk factor for postpartum thyroiditis and via this link, it is hypothesized that TPOAb positivity is a risk factor for PPD. However, the results of currently available single center studies are heterogeneous and affected by major study limitations.<p class="abstext"...

Introduction: medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) is a neuroendocrine thyroidal cancer. World Health Organization recognizes a grading system for almost all neuroendocrine tumors; however, a shared grading system for MTC is still lacking. We performed a clinical and pathological review of 257 MTCs to evaluate which histologic features have an impact on the disease specific survival and to propose a new grading system.Method: We retrospectively reviewed cli...

The most frequent mutation in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is the p.V600E of the BRAF gene. This mutation leads to the aberrant activation of the RAS / BRAF / MEK / ERK pathway and consequently to the under-regulation of thyroid-specific genes, resulting in uncontrolled growth and de-differentiation of cancer cells. In this work, we analyzed the transcriptomics data produced by the TCGA project using a network approach. The analysis led to the identification of r...

Background: Vandetanib and Cabozantinib are the only two multitarget tyrosine kinase inhibitors approved for the management of metastatic and progressive medullary thyroid cancer. (MTC) Despite their efficacy in terms of progression free survival prolongation and overall response rate, the drug-related toxicity is still a clinical problem, impairing patient’s quality of life and the compliance to the treatment. We retrospectively evaluate the adverse events (AEs) occurred...

Introduction: Only one case of hypophysitis secondary to Takayasu’s artheritis (TKA) has been described so far. We report the second case of a TKA presenting with a massive sellar and cerebrovascular infiltration.Clinical case: A 52 years-old female was referred to endocrine outpatient clinics after a brain MRI performed for a 2-year history of headaches, dizziness and general discomfort. Past medical history included hypertension and aspecific symp...

Background: Serum calcitonin (CT) is a very sensitive test for the diagnosis of medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC). However, its routine dosage in patients with nodular thyroid disease is not recommended by all scientific societies. In addition, to optimize costs, it is only suggested in the case of suspicious nodules on ultrasound, indeterminate nodules at cytology or nodular goiter before surgery. The aim of the study is to evaluate the serum CT in a series of consecutive MTC...

Background: Cardiovascular events are the major cause of mortality among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2). Menopause in women additionally increases cardiovascular risk. Despite myocardial infarction (MI) treatment approach in diabetic patients is not specific, some glucose-lowering drugs could have cardioprotective properties. In general, most glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1Ra) and sodium-glucose co-transporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT-2i) have cardiova...

Introduction: Acromegaly is characterized by elevated levels of growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), most often due to a pituitary tumor. Persistent high levels of these hormones lead to a constellation of signs and symptoms and systemic complications associated with increased mortality. A potential association between acromegaly and cancer has been hypothesized regarding colorectal, thyroid, and prostate cancers, but there are few or no descriptions f...