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Top 5 adrenal news reports from 2017
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Endocrine Today has compiled a list of the top five adrenal news reports posted in 2017.
Healio.com/Endocrinology readers were interested in the potential of levoketoconazole for the treatment for endogenous Cushing’s syndrome and research presented at the Endocrine Society Annual Meeting.
Drug trial begins for Cushing’s syndrome therapy
Participant enrollment has concluded for a phase 3 trial investigating the safety and efficacy of levoketoconazole, a cortisol synthesis inhibitor, for the treatment of endogenous Cushing’s syndrome, according to a press release from Strongbridge Biopharma, the drug’s developer.
The single-arm, open-label SONICS study will include the 90 enrolled participants and may allow a small number of other patients to enroll also, according to the release. Read more.
Adrenal vein sampling, CT scanning yield similar outcomes in primary aldosteronism screening
ORLANDO, Fla. — As a screening method, adrenal vein sampling is a “brilliant concept” when used to identify primary aldosteronism and its subtypes, but the invasive procedure is not without its faults when compared with adrenal CT scanning, according to a speaker here.
Jaap Deinum, MD, PhD, a specialist in vascular medicine at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands and current president of the Dutch Society of Hypertension, said compared with adrenal CT scans, adrenal vein sampling (AVS) identified the presence of aldosterone-producing adenomas — present in about half of primary aldosteronism cases — at a similar rate and resulted in similar clinical benefits after 1 year of follow-up. Read more.
New molecules may offer next-generation treatment in prostate cancer
ORLANDO, Fla. — Highly potent selective androgen receptor degraders, or SARDs, may provide advanced treatment options for men with castration-resistant prostate cancer, according to study findings presented here.
The novel molecules have a unique pharmacology that enables them to bind, antagonize and degrade the androgen receptor, along with mutants and splice variants, inhibiting the growth of aggressive prostate cancers that are unresponsive to other androgen pathway inhibitors, according to study background. Read more.
History of cortisone’s discovery offers lessons in ‘team science,’ persistence
ORLANDO, Fla. — It was Christmas Day in 1914 when the Mayo Clinic chemist Edward C. Kendall, PhD, first succeeded in isolating pure crystalline thyroxin using 6,500 pounds of hog thyroid glands, a success that would set him on the course for making one of the greatest discoveries in medicine in the last century.
His pivotal discovery, according to William F. Young, Jr., MD, MSc, chair of the division of endocrinology, diabetes, metabolism and nutrition at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, would lead Kendall, a self-described “hormone hunter,” to conduct adrenal experiments that would eventually change the course of medicine in ways he couldn’t have imagined. Kendall and his team’s discovery of cortisone would lead not only to a breakthrough treatment, Young said, but a Nobel Prize and international acclaim. Read more.
Age at symptom onset tied to survival in adrenocortical carcinoma
ORLANDO, Fla. — Older age at adrenocortical carcinoma symptom onset and higher stage disease are independently associated with overall survival in adolescents with adrenocortical carcinoma, according to research presented here.
“Adrenocortical carcinoma is a rare, but aggressive childhood tumor,” Nidhi Gupta, MBBS, a fellow in pediatric endocrinology at the Mayo Clinic, told Endocrine Today. “Clinical and histopathological features of adrenocortical tumors are distinct in adults and pediatrics. It is important to differentiate adrenocortical adenoma from adrenocortical carcinoma because management and prognosis for the two vary significantly. No definite histopathological criterion has been validated to distinguish adrenocortical adenoma vs. adrenocortical carcinoma in pediatrics. Findings from our study have the potential to help clinicians with management and prognostication of adrenocortical tumors in children.” Read more.