ESPE Abstracts

Current hormone substitution therapy of patients with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is suboptimal and cannot mimic physiological daily rhythms of hormone secretion. As supra-physiological corticoid doses are necessary to avoid adrenal androgen excess, patients show substantially increased comorbidities such as hyperglycemia, arterial hypertension, reduced growth and osteoporosis. Moreover plasma ACTH is often inadequately suppressed, resulting in undesired excess adrena...

21-hydroxylase deficiency (21OHD) is the most common form of congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) and is caused by mutations in the CYP21A2 gene. 21OHD causes a wide array of clinical symptoms that result from gluco- and mineralocorticoid deficiency and adrenal androgen excess. In most cases, supra-physiological glucocorticoid doses are necessary which may cause short stature, obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular and metabolic co-morbidity with reduced quality of lif...