Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) can be an option for advanced pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms (PNENs) to allow patients undergo resection. Whether or not neoadjuvant PRRT increases postoperative morbidity remains unclear.Methods: Patients with initially metastatic and/or locally advanced PNEN who underwent neoadjuvant PRRT (neoadjuvant group) were compared with a group of patients who underwent upfront surgery (control group)...

Introduction: Medical therapy of Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (P-NETs) may take advantage from mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitors. However, so far, the extent of therapeutic response cannot be predicted.Aim: To investigate the possible predictors of sensitivity to mTOR inhibitors in P-NETs.Materials and methods: P-NET primary cultures were treated with IGF1 and/or Everolimus. Cell viability and caspase activity wer...

Introduction: Neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) are heterogeneous neoplasms arising from neuroendocrine cells spread in the respiratory and gastro-entero-pancreatic epithelium. The role of transforming growth factor beta-1 (TGFβ1) in NET biology is largely unknown. TGFβ1 signalling pathway is tumour suppressive in most non-transformed epithelial cell lines. In contrast, many human carcinomas are refractory to the growth–inhibitory effects of TGFβ1.<p class=...

Background: Surgical resection of Nonfunctioning Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumor (NF-PanNET) is curative in most of the cases. Neoadjuvant treatments in patients with resectable NF-PanNET at high-risk of recurrence have never been investigated. Aim of this study was to test the safety and efficacy of neoadjuvant PRRT with 177Lu-DOTATATE followed by surgery in patients with resectable high-risk NF-PanNET.Methods: This was a multi-center single-...

Introduction: Surgery is the only cure for neuroendocrine tumor (NET) disease. R0 resection is critical for successful tumor resection. Early detection of residual disease is key for optimal management. Both imaging and current biomarkers have intrinsic limitations and are largely ineffective up to 3 months post-surgery. NETest, a multigene blood biomarker test, identifies NETs with >90% accuracy. We hypothesized that surgery would decrease NETest levels and that elevated scor...

Introduction: In 2009 the Endocrine Society’s clinical practice guidelines for management of hypoglycemic disorders, confirming previous suggestions, have stated that the new cut-off of insulin for the diagnosis of insulinoma should be lowed to 3 μU/mL in presence of hypoglycemia (serum glucose ≤55 mg/dL). Moreover hypoglycemia in post-prandial status has been reported in insulinoma, alone or associated with fasting hypoglycemia. Finally preexisting diabetes me...

Background: Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare cancer associated with hereditary syndromes in 10% of cases. However, data on germline variants (GVs) in adult patients with sporadic ACC are limited.Methods: We analyzed germline DNA from 150 adult patients with sporadic ACC sequentially referred to our centers between 1998-2019. We designed a custom panel of 17 genes potentially involved in the pathogenesis of ACC: AIP, APC, ARMC5, ARNT, BRCA1, BRCA2...

The occurrence of a pheochromocytoma (Pheo) or a paraganglioma (PGL) during pregnancy is extremely rare with a frequency of 0.002% of all pregnancies.Because of the rarity of this association and the extremely variable clinical picture of Pheo/PGL, the diagnosis constitutes a real challenge for the clinicians. In fact, the differential diagnosis between Pheo/PGL and the more frequent gestational hypertension or (pre)eclampsia is very difficult. Paroxysma...

Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) is a rare tumor arising from neural crest-derived parafollicular C cells. MTC occurs either in sporadic or familial form. A key role in the development of MTC is played by the RET proto-oncogene, as virtually all familial and half sporadic MTC cases feature RET point mutations. These mutations lead to the constitutive activation of the RET kinase and its oncogene conversion. Mutations targeting extracellular cysteines cause disulfide-bond medi...

There are four major types of thyroid cancer: well-differentiated papillary (PTC) and follicular (FTC) carcinoma, undifferentiated anaplastic carcinoma (ATC), and neural-crest derived medullary carcinoma (MTC). In the past two decades, some genetic lesions associated with these tumor types have been unveiled, with mutations in RET and BRAF, RAS and PPARγ, RAS, BRAF and PI3K/AKT, and RET, associated to PTC, FTC, ATC and MTC, respectively. PTC and FTC patients are treated b...