The Thymus Gland: a Target Organ for Growth Hormone

The Thymus Is a Common Target Organ in Infectious Diseases

Infectious disease immunology has largely focused on the effector immune response, changes in the blood and peripheral lymphoid organs of infected individuals, and vaccine development. Studies of the thymus in infected individuals have been neglected, although this is progressively changing. The thymus is a primary lymphoid organ, able to generate mature T cells that eventually colonize seconda...

Hormone requirement for growth and differentiation of the human mammary gland in organ culture.

Human mammary gland explants obtained (as far from the lesion as possible) from female patients who had undergone surgical biopsy for fibroadenoma of the breast were organ cultured in a chemically defined medium, and their hormone requirement for growth and differentiation was studied. Most of the expiants that were cultured in hormone-free medium survived, while the addition of insulin gave fu...

The Thymus Gland - ReadingSample

Partial target organ resistance to thyroid hormone.

An 8-year old boy with a small goiter, normal basal metabolic rate (BMR), and elevated serum thyroid hormone levels (thyroxine [T(4)] 19.5 mug per 100 ml, free T(4) 4 ng per 100 ml, triiodothyronine [T(3)] 505 ng per 100 ml) was studied. He had measurable serum thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels (average 5.5 muU per ml), and the thyroxine-binding proteins, hearing, and epiphyseal structur...

Papillary Carcinoma of Thyroid Gland in a Patient Treated with Recombinant Growth Hormone

The first successful treatment of growth hormone (GH) deficient children with GH extracted from human pituitary was introduced during late 1950's.  The subsequent availability and use of recombinant GH (rhGH) for different clinical conditions raised the question of whether this new therapeutic modality increases the risk of certain conditions such as leukemia or malignancy.  Herein, we report o...