Gulcin Akinci, Baris Akinci, Senol Coskun, Petek Bayindir, Zeliha Hekimsoy, Bilgin Ozmen
Objective: Childhood obesity is associated with impaired endothelial function, insulin resistance and inflammation. Being at risk for overweight has been defined as having a body mass index (BMI) between the 85th and 94th percentile for age and sex. In this study, we looked for features linked to cardiovascular risk in children who are at risk for overweight …
Atieh Amouzegar, Fereidoun Azizi
Objective: To assess variations of urinary iodine concentration (UIC) during a 4-week period among pregnant and non-pregnant women in an iodine-replete area. Design: Pregnant (in their first trimester of pregnancy) and non-pregnant women referred to two maternity hospitals in Tehran were consecutively recruited from September 2005 to March 2006 …
Flora Bacopoulou, George I. Lambrou, Maria-Evangelia Rodanaki,Evgenia Stergioti, Vasiliki Efthymiou, Efthymios Deligeoroglou, Sophia L. Markantonis
OBJECTIVE: To measure, for the first time, serum kisspeptin concentrations in adolescent females with anorexia nervosa (AN) and associated amenorrhea, and investigate potential correlations of kisspeptin with anthropometric, bone and hormonal data. DESIGN: Setting: University Adolescent Medicine Center. Participants: Females aged 12-20 years with typical or atypical AN (based on DSM-5 diagnostic criteria) and controls …
Gerasimos P. Sykiotis, George D. Kalliolias, Christos Terezis, Athanasios G. Papavassiliou
In the homeland of Hippocrates, the study of the history and philosophy of medicine is remarkably infrequent among medical practitioners. It is excluded from the curricula of the majority of medical schools and from the hobbies and pastimes of most physicians and medical students…
Thalia Bei, Constantinos Tilkeridis, Stavros Garantziotis, Sosipatros A. Boikos, Konstantinos Kazakos, Constantinos Simopoulos, Constantine A. Stratakis
OBJECTIVE: We recently reported the association of the Sp1 site polymorphism of the COL1A1 gene with lumbar disk disease (LDD). In the present study we searched for a different polymorphism of the COL1A1 gene (which is usually not in linkage disequilibrium with the Sp1 site) in subjects with LDD…
Angeliki Krikri, Vasileios Alexopoulos, Emmanouil Zoumakis, Paraskevas Katsaronis, Evangelos Balafas, Gregory Kouraklis, Panagiotis E. Karayannacos, George P. Chrousos, Gregory Skalkeas
OBJECTIVE: Minimally invasive operations, such as laparoscopic cholecystectomy and adrenalectomy, result in a more rapid recovery of normal function, less physiological disturbances and less stress to the organism than similar open operations. The purpose of this study was to determine the stress response associated …
Nicolas C. Nicolaides, Evangelia Charmandari
Glucocorticoids play a fundamental role in many physiologic functions and contribute substantially to the achievement of homeostasis. These pleiotropic glucocorticoid actions are mediated by a ubiquitously expressed transcription factor, the human glucocorticoid receptor (hGR), which may influence the transcription …
Effie Poulakou-Rebelakou, Costas Tsiamis, Spyros G. Marketos
In June of 2005 the term hormone completed a life span of one century. The word that Ernest Henry Starling included in one of his four lectures to the Royal Society of Physicians of London, given in June 1905, definitively established the permanent representation in terminology for the products secreted by the endocrine glands…
Theodoros D. Theodoridis, Leonidas Zepiridis, Menelaos Zafrakas, Grigoris Grimbizis, Antonios Tantsis, Dimitra Kyrou, John N. Bontis
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of a Levonorgestrel-releasing Intrauterine System (LNG-IUS) in controlling menorrhagia in comparison with endometrial thermal rollerball ablation. DESIGN: Seventy-nine consecutive patients with menorrhagia underwent either LNG-IUS insertion (n=42) or hysteroscopical endometrial thermal rollerball ablation (n=37) in a prospective, observational, comparative study …
Snezana Polovina, Vera Popovic, Leonidas Duntas, Natasa Milic, Dragan Micic
OBJECTIVE: The aim of our study was to evaluate the relationship between the elevated TSH and fracture risk in postmenopausal women with subclinical hypothyroidism for evaluation of individuals with a high risk for osteoporotic fractures. DESIGN: FRAX score calculation (10-year estimated risk for bone fracture) …
Waldemar Kanczkowski, Mariko Sue, Stefan R. Bornstein
The adrenal gland is a key component of the stress system in the human body. Multiple direct and paracrine interactions between different cell types and their progenitors take place within the adrenal gland microenvironment. These unique interactions are supported by high vascularization and the adrenal cortex extracellular matrix. Alterations in the adrenal gland microenvironment are known to influence the progression of several pathological conditions, such as obesity and sepsis, and to be influenced …
Athanasios Diamandopoulos, Pavlos Goudas, Demetra Patsy
Physicians and scholars of antiquity were well aware that the function of the testicles of humans and animals was not restricted to the production of sperm alone but that it was directly related to sexuality and secondary sexual characteristics. This concept was the natural conclusion of their observations on the macroscopical results of the removal of testicular tissue …
Mehmet Uludag, Adnan Isgor, Gürkan Yetkin, Murat Atay, Abut Kebudi, Ismail Akgun
Ectopic and/or supernumerary parathyroid glands are a major cause of persistent and recurrent Hyperparathyroidism (HPT). For this reason, it is widely accepted that preoperative localization should be performed to improve the surgical results in patients with persistent or recurrent HPT …
Shizhang Liu, Zhi Yi, Ming Ling, Jiyuan Shi
OBJECTIVE: Osteoporosis is a serious and common health issue of considerable complexity among postmenopausal women. The osteoprotegerin gene (OPG) is considered to play an important role in the pathogenesis of osteoporosis. The objective of this study was to detect single nucleotide polymorphisms …
Olga Karapanou, Marinella Tzanela, Barbara Vlassopoulou, Christina Kanaka-Gantenbein
Differentiated thyroid cancer in childhood is rare. Apart from family history, radiation exposure is a major risk factor. Although its clinical course is quite aggressive with higher rates of lymph node and pulmonary metastases as compared to adults, the final outcome tends to be favorable with mortality rates less than 2% …
Napoleon Krikis, Konstantinos Tziomalos, Vasilios Perifanis, Sofia Vakalopoulou, Asterios Karagiannis, Vasilia Garypidou, Fedon Harsoulis
We report a patient with von Willebrand’ s disease who had had recurrent and life-threatening bleeding from the gastrointestinal tract. Despite extensive investigation, no apparent cause of haemorrhage was identified. He was successfully treated with combined administration of octreotide LAR (long-acting release) and propranolol. This is the first report on the successful use of octreotide LAR in a patient with von Willebrand’ s disease…
Andrew Collier, Sujoy Ghosh, Mario Hair, Iqbal Malik, Jim McGarvie
OBJECTIVE: Radioiodine therapy is the most commonly used therapy for patients with Graves’ disease (GD) in the United Kingdom. It is considered safe, effective and relatively inexpensive. The aim of our study was to examine the outcome of 131Iodine therapy in patients with GD when two different activities of 131Iodine were used …
Georgios Valsamakis, Dimitrios C. Papatheodorou, Alexandra Margeli, Vassilios Bakoulas, Efthymios Kapantais, Ioannis Papassotiriou, George Creatsas, Sudhesh Kumar, George Mastorakos
OBJECTIVE: The role of first trimester maternal body mass index (BMI) and adipocytokines in cord blood c-peptide and birth weight in pregnancy was investigated. DESIGN: Seventy non-diabetic pregnant Caucasian women were recruited …
Mara Boschetti, Massimo Casu, Sara Moretti, Claudia Teti, Valeria Albanese, Manuela Albertelli, Giovanni Murialdo, Francesco Minuto, Diego Ferone
OBJECTIVE: This prospective study aimed to evaluate the impact of growth hormone deficiency (GHD) on cardiac autonomic tone and on cardiovascular risk and the changes after 12 months of GH replacement therapy (GHRT). GHD is associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality …
Athanasios Fountas, Stelios Tigas, Zoe Giotaki, Dimitrios Petrakis, George Pentheroudakis, Agathocles Tsatsoulis
OBJECTIVE: Sunitinib is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor used in the therapy of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PNETs), metastatic renal cancer and gastrointestinal stromal tumors. We describe a patient with PNET who presented with severe hypoglycemia following sunitinib administration …
Alexandra Chrisoulidou
I read with great interest the article by Yazici et al. on TSH/Tg ratio in the prediction of thyroid cancer. The justification for thyroid surgery in patients with thyroid nodules has led to many interesting studies looking into predictive markers, albeit without as yet concrete results that could alter the current practice …
Ikki Sakuma, Jun Saito, Yoko Matsuzawa, Masao Omura, Seiji Matsui, Takamitsu Maehara, Naoki Hasegawa, Tetsuo Nishikawa
OBJECTIVE: We report a 44-year old man with ectopic adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) syndrome caused by bronchial carcinoid that developed Cushing syndrome. METHODS: We performed several imaging studies, including chest and abdominal CT, for exploration of nodules and selective pulmonary …
Elisa Sala, Emanuele Ferrante, Marco Locatelli, Paolo Rampini, Giovanna Mantovani, Claudia Giavoli, Marcello Filopanti, Elisa Verrua, Elena Malchiodi, Giorgio Carrabba, Maura Arosio, Paolo Beck-Peccoz, Anna Spada, Andrea Gerardo Lania
OBJECTIVE: Transsphenoidal (TNS) surgery remains the primary therapeutic option for GH-secreting pituitary adenomas. The aims of this study were to verify the impact of TNS surgery on treatment of acromegaly before and after identification by a dedicated neurosurgical team and to enumerate diagnostic features …
Marco Mendola, Alessia Dolci, Lanfranco Piscopello, Giustino Tomei, Dario Bauer, Sabrina Corbetta, Bruno Ambrosi
We describe a patient affected by Cushing’s disease due to the presence of double pituitary adenomas, one located within the anterior pituitary and the other in the infundibulum associated with a remnant of Rakthe’s pouch. Cure was achieved only after the infundibulum lesion was surgically removed …
Maria Francesca Messina, Tommaso Aversa, Luisa de Sanctis, Malgorzata Wasniewska, Mariella Valenzise, Giovanni Battista Pajno, Filippo De Luca, Fortunato Lombardo
BACKGROUND: This study was carried out because of the rarity of peripheral precocious puberty (PPP) in boys with McCune-Albright syndrome (MAS) and the lack of data on adult height of treated MAS males, treatment for this disorder being not as yet standardized …