ESPE Abstracts

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a prevalent disorder in adolescent girls, commonly driven by hepato-visceral fat excess, usually presenting with hirsutism and menstrual irregularity, and often followed by subfertility and type 2 diabetes.We studied the miRNA profile of adolescent girls with PCOS, and the effects of randomized treatment with an oral contraceptive (OC) or with spironolactone-pioglitazone-metformin (SPIOMET, aiming at loss of hepato-vis...

Introduction: The presence of ZnT8 (zinc transporter 8) has been described on the surface of beta pancreatic cells in type 1 diabetic patients and the ZnT8 Ab (zinc transporter-8 autoantibody) has been recently established as a new marker of this autoimmune disease. There are studies demonstrating that ZnT8 may be of importance in some other endocrine cell types. In our study we wanted to verify the presence of ZnT8 in thyroid cells of children and adolescents...

Background: Antipituitary (APA) and antihypothalamus antibodies (AHA) have not been investigated in children and adolescents with brain tumors.Patients and Methods: Sixty-three patients with craniopharyngioma, glioma and germinoma treated with surgery and/or chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy were evaluated at a median age of 13 years. Forty-one had MPHD, 6 had a single defect being GH the most common (65.1%), followed...

Background: There is increasing evidence from epidemiological studies that some man-made chemicals present in the environment can disrupt endocrine homeostasis in exposed humans. Exposure during foetal life to e.g. phthalates has been linked to adverse effects on testicular and ovarian development, thyroid homeostasis and growth in postnatal life. Exposure to phthalates fluctuates not only from day to day but also over time which poses a major challenge for ex...

Introduction: Graves'disease (GD) is a polygenic and multifactorial disease.The innate immune system is a complex network of structured cells and proteins, including the Toll-like receptors (TLRs), which are also expressed on the cells of the adaptive immune system.The aim was to assess the relationship between the expression of TLR-2 on the surface of T CD4+ and CD8+ lymphocytes in pat...

Childhood obesity became a global plague: 9% of Italian children (17% of USA children) is obese and 21% is overweight. Nowadays only a small number of obese children undergoes genetic analysis, usually when obesity is associated with dysmorphic features. Our purpose was to identify genomic rearrangement causing obesity: we analyzed the DNA of 52 children by array-CGH (platform CytoScan-HD, Affymetrix). Patients included in our study were 29 males (55,8%) and 23...

X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH) is the most common genetic disorder of phosphate homeostasis. It is caused by inactivating mutations in the PHEX gene, which encodes a phosphate regulating endopeptidase predominantly expressed in osteoblasts, osteocytes, and odontoblasts.In children there is a broad phenotypic spectrum of XLH ranging from isolated hypophosphatemia without clinical signs up to severe symptoms, such as rickets, extreme lower limb d...

Aim: The objective of the study was to determine bone mineralisation density in Turner syndrome (TS) from DSD life cohort, and to analyse the trabecular (lumbar spine = LS) and cortical bone (femoral neck = FN) mineralisation.Materials and Methods: This study was part of the DSD-LIFE study, a cross-sectional clinical outcome study of the BMD of TS adult patients from paediatric cohorts. BMD of the LS and FN were ...

Presently, the autoimmune character of T1D is challenged, but it is indisputable that inflammation plays a key role in its development. We hypothesized that glucotoxicity could contribute to β-cell mass destruction through maintenance of inflammation. Here, we aimed to evaluate, after diabetes onset, the potential of empagliflozin (EMPA) to protect β-cell mass against glucotoxicity, in monotherapy or in association with GABA, tested for its potential to increas...

Introduction: Adrenarche refers to the increase in adrenal androgen synthesis. However, process of adrenal androgen production in early childhood remains to be elucidated. The aim of this study was to evaluate changes in adrenal androgen levels and steroidogenic enzyme activities associated with adrenarche using a prospective cohort.Methods: A total of 229 children (124 boys, 52.4%), who had participated in the Envir...

Background: MAS is a rare disorder, this syndrome is classically characterized by a triad of physical signs: cafe-au-lait skin pigmentation(SP), fibrous bone dysplasia(FD), peripheral precocious puberty(PPP). In children, the most frequent initial presentation of MAS is PPP. MAS is caused by postzygotic activating mutations at the R201 codon of the GNAS gene, leading to a state of somatic mosaicium. In MAS patients, the frequency of mutations is expected to be...

Introduction: Recently novel approaches, through implementation of next-generation sequencing (NGS) in clinical practice for genetic evaluation of idiopathic short stature, has permitted to identify new variants of genes which modulate function of growth plate, including heterozygous mutations of the aggrecan gene. Aggrecan, a large chondroitin sulfated proteoglycan, is a major structural component of the extracellular matrix of cartilage, including growth pla...

Aim: Evaluation of the results from the campaign GrowInform (2017-2019), a project with the main aim to raise awareness of growth disorders, and secondary aims to facilitate screening for growth deviations in children from areas with no easy access to pediatric endocrinologists, thus achieving earlier diagnosis and treatment.Methods: For 2 years (April 2017 to March 2018), GrowInform acted in 13 cities and towns from Eas...

Background: Recently, the puberty is becoming to start earlier. This early beginning of the puberty is multifactorially related to genes, hormones and environmental factors. It has been already known in many animal experiments that endocrine disrupting chemicals (ECDs) are deeply envolved in regulation of endocrine systems. However, clinical studies in humans are limited. Recently, the toy of 'Slim' which thought to contain ECDs such as phthalates is v...

Introduction: The human fecal microbiota is known to shift in composition during adolescence, but whether fecal microbiota is associated with timing of sexual maturation is unknown. In mice, the change in the composition of fecal microbiota during puberty appears to be sex-specific and associate with changes in testosterone. We investigated the association between intestinal microbiota and pubertal timing in adolescents.Subjects ...

Object: IGF2 is a paternally expressed gene involved in the development of Silver-Russell syndrome (SRS). Here, we report six Japanese patients with IGF2 mutations and compare clinical findings between patients with IGF2 mutations including literature cases and those with H19/IGF2:IG-DMR epimutations.Patients: We recruited six Japanese patients with IGF2 mutations. Th...

Background: Type 1 diabetes (T1D) contributes to altered lipid profiles and increased cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. Youth with T1D may have subclinical CVD within the first decade of diagnosis.Objective: To assess risk factors associated with dyslipidemia in young subjects with T1D.Study Design and Methods: A longitudinal and cross-sectional retrospective cohort study was cond...

Objective: Osteogenesis imperfecta is an inherited disorder characterised by bone fragility. Antiresorptive treatment with bisphosphonates is a well-established first line medical treatment in OI types III/IV. Nevertheless, there is no consensus on treatment modalities, like which bisphosphonate to use in which dose and when to initiate treatment. The objective of this work was to evaluate the therapeutic effect of a one-year treatment period with bisphosphona...

Background: Girls with Turner Syndrome (TS) are at an increased risk of primary ovarian failure. Oestrogen replacement is commenced at around the age of 12 years, in girls who do not enter puberty spontaneously, with incremental changes to the dose over the next 3 years until adult replacement doses are achieved. We have previously shown good correlation between serum and urinary LH (uLH) and FSH (uFSH) in children being assessed for disorders of puberty.<...

Background: Noonan syndrome (NS) is a common autosomal dominant/recessive disorder. No large-scale study has been conducted on NS in China, which is the most populous country in the world.Methods: Next-generation sequencing (NGS) was used to identify pathogenic variants in patients that exhibited NS-related phenotypes. We assessed the facial features and clinical manifestations of patients with pathogenic or likely patho...