Endocrine Abstracts

Small, non-palpable thyroid nodules, detectable by thyroid ultrasound (US) in 30–50% of the general population, are likely to cause no significant health problem, thus deserving the definition of ‘thyroid incidentalomas’. Although clinically overt thyroid cancer is relatively rare, the most relevant issue for thyroid incidentalomas is the exclusion of malignancy by cytological examination of material obtained by fine needle aspiration (FNA). However, in about 30...

Current issues relating to pituitary incidentalomas include definitional limits, difficulties in their diagnosis resulting in hidden dangers, unknown pathogeny and management based on expectation. The prevalence of pituitary incidentalomas depends on the method of investigation: 3.2–27% in necroptic studies or 10–23% by imaging (MRI or CT), compared to only 0.1% clinically expressed pituitary adenomas. Diagnosis requires at least imaging and hormonal assays. However,...

Incidentally detected adrenal masses are increasingly encountered in clinical practice due to better availability and accessibility of imaging procedures and are considered to be amongst the most common tumors in humans, with an estimated prevalence ranging from 0.4 to 4.4%. Malignancy is rare amongst patients with adrenal incidentalomas presenting in an endocrine clinic. The imaging phenotype is very helpful in distinguishing benign adenomas from malignant lesions. From the e...