Endocrine Abstracts

Recent years have seen many exciting developments in the field of steroidogenesis. These include improved diagnostics through mass spectrometry, novel clinical relevance attributed to steroids previously deemed irrelevant and successful implementation of new anti-cancer treatments. Prostate cancer is a prime example of the latter with the recent confirmation that castration-resistant disease is still androgen-dependent and susceptible to hormonal manipulation with next generat...

Adrenal incidentalomas represent an increasingly common diagnostic problem facing clinical Endocrinologists. Swift and accurate differentiation of benign from malignant disease is essential, but the diagnostic performance of current imaging modalities is sub-optimal and often leads to ill-advised management decisions. Urinary steroid profiling by modern mass spectrometry-based techniques can provide a comprehensive profile of steroidogenesis, quantifying both precursor molecul...

Adrenal aldosterone excess is the most common cause of secondary hypertension and is associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. However, adverse metabolic risk in primary aldosteronism extends beyond hypertension, with increased rates of insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and osteoporosis, which cannot be easily explained by aldosterone excess but would rather be associated with oversecretion of glucocorticoids. Over the last years, exome sequencing ha...