Volume 16 Issue 5, May 2020

Effective medical treatment for thyroid eye disease, a debilitating condition that can cause sight loss, has been lacking. A recent phase III trial of teprotumumab, an IGF1R antagonist, reports encouraging results and could be a game changer. Here, the trial is put in the context of current management strategies to address this question.

Current recommendations for perioperative doses of hydrocortisone in patients with adrenal insufficiency undergoing major surgery with general anaesthesia have been examined in a new paper. Compared with current guidelines, lower doses of hydrocortisone, tapered quickly back to baseline levels of glucocorticoids, were found to be effective and safe.

This Review discusses mechanisms of cellular senescence and approaches to target this pathway therapeutically using ‘senolytic’ drugs or inhibitors of the senescence-associated secretory phenotype. In addition, evidence is presented that cellular senescence has a causative role in multiple chronic diseases associated with ageing and/or endocrine diseases.

This Review discusses the connections between insulin signalling and oncogenic transformation, highlighting the potential effect of insulin as a pro-tumorigenic factor. The latest studies examining new approaches to circumvent systemic insulin feedback to increase the antitumour effect of agents targeting the insulin signalling pathway are discussed.

The adrenal glands are a source of androgens that all share an oxygen atom on carbon 11 (termed 11-oxyandrogens). This Review focuses on the rapidly expanding knowledge regarding the implications of 11-oxyandrogens in human physiology and disease.