ESPE Abstracts

It is well known that early diagnosis of growth disorders in children and their timely treatment are important for better outcomes.Objective: To evaluate the results from the implementation of the Partners4Growth Twinning Programme at Bulgarian tertiary pediatric endocrinology clinics. Materials and Methods: Since 2019 Partners4Growth started operation at 6 centers – 3 experienced in growth disorders reference centers and 3 twin cen...

Background: due to its recently documented role in intercellular tight junction disassembly, zonulin has emerged as a valuable biological marker to assess the integrity of the intestinal mucosal barrier. Experimental studies have shown an association between intestinal permeability and obesity.Objectives: aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between serum zonulin levels, both at baseline and postprandial...

Pediatric obesity is constantly increasing and exposes to serious cardiovascular and metabolic risks. The first treatment against obesity is lifestyle change. Actually, any intervention seems to be effective on the evolution of this condition, especially in the long term. For this reason, the interest in non-pharmaceutical compounds is growing. Several studies mentioned the use of zinc and inositol as compounds acting on weight loss and insulin resistance. The aim of this stud...

Background: Congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI) is the most common cause of the persistent hypoglycemia in children and occurs in approximately 1 in 50,000 live births. Genetic testing provides information on the pancreatic histological subtype (i.e. focal vs diffuse) and determines further management and prognosis of the patients. At least 11 known monogenic forms and several syndromes have been associated with CHI. Mutations in ABCC8 and KCNJ11 genes coding pot...

Introduction: In youth, primary ovarian insufficiency (POI) is due to genetic, autoimmune, iatrogenic, and idiopathic etiologies. When POI is diagnosed early with evidence of an ovarian reserve, fertility preservation can be offered. When the girl is premenarchal, the preferred fertility preservation method is ovarian tissue cryopreservation (OTC) containing primordial follicles. In the past, when OTC was performed in an unselected group of children and adoles...

Objective: Central precocious puberty (CPP) is a common condition in pediatric endocrinology practice. Gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists (GnRHa) treatment is safe, but the real effect on final height and the ideal timing for treatment remains controversial. The purpose of the authors was to evaluate a nationwide representative group of CPP Portuguese girls treated with GnRHa, assess the effectiveness of treatment and the growth outcome before and after 8...

Background and Aims: Thyroid hormones profoundly affect energy metabolism but their interrelation with food preference, which might contribute to childhood obesity development, are much less understood. Here we investigated if age-related changes of thyroid hormone levels are paralleled by specific modulation of food preference and potentially linked to the level of obesity in children and adolescents.Patients and Methods:</stron...

Silver-Russell syndrome (SRS) is a rare heterogeneous syndrome associated with severe prenatal and postnatal growth retardation.Context: There is little information on puberty onset and bone age trend in children with SRS.Study Design and partecipants: Retrospective observational study, including patients with a confirmed diagnosis of SRS divided in 2 molecular groups [ 11p15 loss of methylation, (...

Background: Since COVID-19 the number of girls referred to pediatric endocrinologist for suspected precocious puberty (PP) and early puberty (EP) has increased. The aim of the study was to evaluate the incidence, the anthropometric, biochemical and radiological characteristics of PP during the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to previous years.Methods: We retrospectively evaluated medical records of 464 females (F) referred t...

We report and discuss a case of a girl who at birth underwent surgery for Hirschsprung Disease (HD). To closely investigate her condition, we used a Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) panel to carry out a study of some of the genes known as being associated with congenital megacolon (PHOX-2B, RET, EDN3, GDNF, ASCL1 and BDNF). This analysis showed a maternally inherited heterozygous variant in the RET protooncogene (c.734T>A, p.Val245Glu), which is not described in the scienti...