Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
The conditions enabling spermatogonial stem cells to be grownin vitro and transplanted in vivo, where they can restore fertility, are now well-established in murine systems. This review describes the features of these cells and their potential use in human cancer treatment, diseases affecting fertility, and potentially in gene therapy.
Strategies that preserve or perhaps increase the β-cell mass in the pancreas could prevent diabetes. There are promising immunomodulatory approaches that include giving at-risk subjects insulin across mucosal barriers, and treating affected patients with monoclonal antibodies that alter immune regulation.
Although medication for Graves' hyperthyroidism can be withdrawn without adverse effects for the patient, the data regarding the optimal duration of therapy are still unsatisfactory. This Viewpoint discusses how long treatment for Graves' disease should be continued and how withdrawal of antithyroid drugs might affect remission and relapse.
Neuroendocrine responses differ markedly in chronic critical illness compared with acute illness, and the chronic response may be harmful. Hyperglycemia is a major risk factor, and control of blood glucose is important. Because hypothalamic–pituitary axes interact during chronic illness, validating new therapies aimed at correcting multiple endocrine pathways seems warranted.
Administration of testosterone to men markedly reduces sperm counts and is a very efficient and well tolerated method of contraception. Combinations with progestogens or with gonadotropin-releasing hormone antagonists are even more effective and suggest that hormonal contraception in men is feasible and may be as effective as the currently used methods.
Thyroid cancer is the commonest endocrine malignancy, and drugs that target protein kinases offer a new approach in combating this and other malignancies. This review describes the various kinase targets in thyroid cancers, and details the inhibitors of the kinases RET and BRAF that are now in clinical trials.
