Introduction: Acromegaly is a rare endocrine disorder of the growth hormone (GH)-insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) metabolism that can affect women of fertile age. Although uncommon, pregnancies in acromegalic women can occur, with data regarding the management of these cases being very limited, mostly consisting of case reports.Case Presentation: We present the case of an acromegalic woman, first diagnosed at the age of 22, after the surgical resection of a pituitary mass. Throughout the evolution, she received conventional radiotherapy and has been treated with somatostatin receptor ligands (SRLs), dopamine agonists (DAs), and GH-blockers. At the age of 37, the patient decided to become pregnant while she was on Pegvisomant and DA therapy. The treatment was stopped, and the patient became pregnant at the age of 38. Tumor size and IGF-1 values have remained stable throughout the pregnancy, and no complications occurred. A healthy child with normal birth weight was delivered on term through Cesarean section.Conclusions: Managing pregnant women with acromegaly is challenging because of the little available data regarding the safety of medical treatment and a high interindividual variability of GH-IGF-1 evolution during this period. The particularity of our case was a patient with a long history of acromegaly, who had an uneventful pregnancy despite stopping all medical treatment.

Diabetic individuals are considered a vulnerable population during the COVID-19 Pandemic, and several studies noted worse outcomes, including death, among those who get infected. Diabetic emergencies, such as ketoacidosis (DKA), are common and potentially life-threatening conditions in uncontrolled patients. While the pathophysiological background of the relationship between COVID-19 and DKA is not fully understood, early reports available so far indicate that patients with pre-existing diabetes who get infected with the SARS-CoV 2 virus are at higher risk of DKA. It was also suggested that DKA is a poor prognostic sign for infected patients, these being at higher risk of developing worse forms of COVID-19 disease and having high mortality. Therefore, healthcare personnel dealing with such patients face a considerable challenge, as the correct and safe emergency management of such cases is far from established. This article aimed to conduct a study that reviews the current published data available about patients with DKA and COVID-19.

Introduction Acromegaly is a rare chronic endocrine disorder that can lead to significant quality of life (QoL) impairment and persistent symptomatology in both biochemically uncontrolled as well as in cured or controlled patients. We aimed to conduct an observational cross-sectional study investigating the associations between biochemical disease control, associated comorbidities, and symptoms severity on QoL in a cohort of acromegalic patients. Methods Thirty-one patients with acromegaly were enrolled in our study. AcroQoL and PASQ (Pain assessed acromegaly symptoms questionnaire) questionnaires were applied to all patients. Information about disease status, associated comorbidities, and other relevant clinical and paraclinical data were gathered. Results Patients with uncontrolled acromegaly presented worse QoL and symptoms scores than controlled patients, but the difference was not statistically significant (AcroQoL 57.22 vs 64.04, p > 0.05; PASQ 12 vs 16.47, p > 0.05). Worse symptoms were significantly associated with impaired QoL (overall symptoms score on PASQ was negatively correlated with AcroQoL total score, r = − 0.61, p < 0.05). Cardiovascular complications were associated with lower QoL scores, but not with worse symptoms (AcroQoL total score in patients with- versus patients without cardiovascular complications: 54.89 vs 70.14, p < 0.05). Conclusions Achieving biochemical control of acromegaly might not be enough to reverse the QoL impairment and improve symptomatology in acromegalic patients. While symptoms severity and the presence of cardiovascular complications seem to play an important role in reducing patients QoL, the roles of disease control, diabetes, and pituitary insufficiency are less clear.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the benefits of two different Selenium based supplements on patients with chronic autoimmune thyroiditis.Methods: We conducted a prospective study on 50 patients with chronic autoimmune thyroiditis, who were divided into three different treatment groups, one group taking Selenium 100 μg, one Procor T (a combination of Selenium 100 μg and other elements like copper, Zinc and Q10 Conenzyme) and one control group taking Placebo pills. We measured on two follow up visits the antibody levels (anti-thyroidperoxidase- TPO Ab) and offered each patient a standardised questionnaire regarding the thyroid-related quality of life (THYPROro).Results: At the 6 months follow up visit there was a statistically significant decrease in the antibody levels for each treatment group compared to the base levels. The THYPROro questionnaire scores showed an improvement in most aspects regarding the quality of life as well, but there was no significant difference between the placebo and the treated groups in the magnitude of this improvement.Conclusions: Based on our results, we could not identify a certain benefit in improving quality of life with the supplementation of Selenium, as the improvements were at a similar level for the patients who took Placebo pills. Further studies with more patients, as well as taking the Selenium defficiency in consideration (by measuring the basal serum level of Selenium for each patient) would be required to find the target group of patients who could have most benefits of Selenium-based supplementation.

Acromegaly is a rare endocrine disorder, which despite the recent advances in diagnosis and management, remains a significant burden in terms of morbidity and mortality for patients because of the frequent aggressive evolution and lack of response to available first-line pharmacological therapy. A switch from the classical “trial and error” management to a personalized therapy approach has been proposed through early identification of biomarkers that could predict treatment response and biological behavior. Several such molecular markers have been extensively studied through immunohistochemistry (IHC), among them the somatostatin receptors type 2 (SSTR-2) and type 5 (SSTR-5), which are known to correlate with response to somatostatin analogues treatment, the SSTR-2 negative tumors usually being resistant to first-generation analogues, while SSTR-5 potentially being a predictive marker for the novel agent, Pasireotide. Based on cytokeratin (CK) immunostaining pattern, somatotropinomas have been classified into densely granulated adenomas (DGAs), which present a milder evolution and favorable outcomes after therapy, and sparsely granulated adenomas (SGAs), known to be more aggressive and frequently resistant to first-line treatment options. Other novel markers, such as the E-cadherin cell-adhesion protein, the aryl hydrocarbon receptor-interacting protein (AIP), the cytoskeleton molecule filamin A (FLNA) and the Ki-67 nuclear antigen have also been the highlight of IHC studies on growth hormone (GH)-producing tumors, with promising results regarding their predictive roles for the outcome of acromegalic patients. In this review, we aimed to summarize the current knowledge on the role of IHC for acromegaly, highlighting the most important biomarkers that could offer valuable information for predicting treatment response, biological behavior, and prognosis.