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Glucagon receptor gene mutations with hyperglucagonemia but without the glucagonoma syndrome.

ABSTRACT: Pancreatic neoplasms producing exclusively glucagon associated with glucagon cell hyperplasia of the islets and not related to hereditary endocrine syndromes have been recently described. They represent a novel entity within the panel of non-syndromic disorders associated with hyperglucagonemia. This case report describes a 36-year-old female with a 10 years history of non-specific abdominal pain. No underlying cause was evident despite extensive diagnostic work-up. More recently she was diagnosed with gall bladder stones. Abdominal ultrasound, computerised tomography and magnetic resonance imaging revealed no pathologic findings apart from cholelithiasis. Endoscopic ultrasound revealed a 5.5 mm pancreatic lesion. Fine needle aspiration showed cells focally expressing chromogranin, suggestive but not diagnostic of a low grade neuroendocrine tumor. OctreoScan(®) was negative. Serum glucagon was elevated to 66 pmol/L (normal: 0-50 pmol/L). Other gut hormones, chromogranin A and chromogranin B were normal. Cholecystectomy and enucleation of the pancreatic lesion were undertaken. Postoperatively, abdominal symptoms resolved and serum glucagon dropped to 7 pmol/L. Although H and E staining confirmed normal pancreatic tissue, immunohistochemistry was initially thought to be suggestive of alpha cell hyperplasia. A count of glucagon positive cells from 5 islets, compared to 5 islets from 5 normal pancreata indicated that islet size and glucagon cell ratios were increased, however still within the wide range of normal physiological findings. Glucagon receptor gene (GCGR) sequencing revealed a heterozygous deletion, K349_G359del and 4 missense mutations. This case may potentially represent a progenitor stage of glucagon cell adenomatosis with hyperglucagonemia in the absence of glucagonoma syndrome. The identification of novel GCGR mutations suggests that these may represent the underlying cause of this condition.

SUBMITTER: Miller HC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4390892 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Glucagon receptor gene mutations with hyperglucagonemia but without the glucagonoma syndrome.

Miller Helen C HC Kidd Mark M Modlin Irvin M IM Cohen Patrizia P Dina Roberto R Drymousis Panagiotis P Vlavianos Panagiotis P Klöppel Günter G Frilling Andrea A

World journal of gastrointestinal surgery 20150401 4

Pancreatic neoplasms producing exclusively glucagon associated with glucagon cell hyperplasia of the islets and not related to hereditary endocrine syndromes have been recently described. They represent a novel entity within the panel of non-syndromic disorders associated with hyperglucagonemia. This case report describes a 36-year-old female with a 10 years history of non-specific abdominal pain. No underlying cause was evident despite extensive diagnostic work-up. More recently she was diagnos ...[more]

PMID: 25914784

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Project description:Patients with heritable cancer syndromes characterized by germline PTEN mutations (termed PTEN hamartoma tumor syndrome, PHTS) benefit from PTEN-enabled cancer risk assessment and clinical management. PTEN-wildtype patients (~50%) remain at increased risk of developing certain cancers. Existence of germline mutations in other known cancer susceptibility genes has not been explored in these patients, with implications for different medical management. We conducted a 4-year multicenter prospective study of incident patients with features of Cowden/Cowden-like (CS/CS-like) and Bannayan-Riley-Ruvalcaba syndromes (BRRS) without PTEN mutations. Exome sequencing and targeted analysis were performed including 59 clinically actionable genes from the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) and 24 additional genes associated with inherited cancer syndromes. Pathogenic or likely pathogenic cancer susceptibility gene alterations were found in 7 of the 87 (8%) CS/CS-like and BRRS patients and included MUTYH, RET, TSC2, BRCA1, BRCA2, ERCC2 and HRAS. We found classic phenotypes associated with the identified genes in 5 of the 7 (71.4%) patients. Variant positive patients were enriched for the presence of second malignant neoplasms compared to patients without identified variants (OR = 6.101, 95% CI 1.143-35.98, p = 0.035). Germline variant spectrum and frequencies were compared to The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), including 6 apparently sporadic cancers associated with PHTS. With comparable overall prevalence of germline variants, the spectrum of mutated genes was different in our patients compared to TCGA. Intriguingly, we also found notable enrichment of variants of uncertain significance (VUS) in our patients (OR = 2.3, 95% CI 1.5-3.5, p = 0.0002). Our data suggest that only a small subset of PTEN-wildtype CS/CS-like and BRRS patients could be accounted for by germline variants in some of the known cancer-related genes. Thus, the existence of alterations in other and more likely non-classic cancer-associated genes is plausible, reflecting the complexity of these heterogeneous hereditary cancer syndromes.

Dataset Information

Glucagon receptor gene mutations with hyperglucagonemia but without the glucagonoma syndrome.

Publications

Glucagon receptor gene mutations with hyperglucagonemia but without the glucagonoma syndrome.

Similar Datasets

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