ESPE Abstracts

Background: Growth hormone deficiency (GHD) is the most common endocrine cause of impaired growth. Recombinant human GH (rhGH) therapy does not always achieve complete catch-up growth or final height within the genetic target height despite standardised treatment guidelines. The factors causing the considerable variability in responsiveness to rhGH have not yet been fully elucidated. Apart from a number of auxological and clinical parameters, genetic factors also appear to pla...

Background: Recently we demonstrated that male adolescents with severe GHD (sGHD) had a significant decrease of lean body mass and increase in fat mass after stop of GH-therapy. The functional consequence of this observation is unknown.Objective and hypotheses: The aim was to study the changes in parameters of jumping mechanography in adolescents with GHD in the transition period (end of growth) after stop of GH-therapy.Patients an...

Background: Recently a heterozygote mutations in the gene ACAN coding the protein aggrecan has been described as a cause of familiar short starture combined with accelerated bone age. The aggrecan is an extracellular proteoglycan in cartilage of growth plates and plays an important role in biological and biomechanical properties of cartilage.Objective and hypotheses: To provide a genetic screening of ACAN within the families with familiar short stature a...

Background: Short stature caused by point mutations or deletions of the short stature homeobox (SHOX) gene (SHOX haploinsufficiency, SHI) is a registered indication for growth hormone (GH) treatment. Patients with a SHOX enhancer deletion (SED) have a similar phenotype, but their response to GH is unknown. It is uncertain if duplications of SHOX or its enhancer (SDUP) can cause short stature.Objective and hypotheses: To describe the clinical characterist...

Background: Concern remains regarding the potential influence of growth hormone (GH) treatment on neoplasia because of the general growth-inducing effect of GH and associations between high serum IGF1 concentrations and certain cancers in adulthood. Many studies that evaluated risk for primary cancer in GH-treated patients without previous malignancy found no increased rates of primary neoplasia. A higher risk for colorectal cancer was observed in a single-country cohort treat...

Background: Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with the response to GH therapy have previously been identified in growth hormone deficient (GHD) children in the PREDICT long-term follow-up (LTFU) study (NCT00699855).Objective and hypotheses: To assess the effect of GHD severity on the predictive value of genetic markers of growth response.Method: We used pre-pubertal GHD children (peak GH <10 μg/l) from the ...

Background: Children with growth hormone deficiency (GHD) may experience physiological symptoms as well as social and emotional problems.Objective and hypotheses: This qualitative study explored the burden of GHD and treatment for children and their parents.Method: 70 interviews were conducted with 39 children (age 8–12) and 31 parents of children with GHD (age 4–12) in Germany, UK and USA. Interviews were analysed using ...

Background: As well as acting on longitudinal growth, growth hormone (GH) also has a number of metabolic effects, and is involved in the regulation, functioning and development of the immune system.Aims: To evaluate the immune profile in GH-deficient children after 6 months’ GH treatment.Method: A total of 44 children were examined before and after a six-month course of treatment with rhGH (0.03 mg/Kg per day). Levels of IGF1 ...

Background: Brown adipose tissue metabolism is of remarkable pathophysiological interest, because it could be a target for therapies for obesity and metabolic syndrome. Irisin (Ir), recently identified adipomyokine is essential in a white-to-brown fatty tissue transdifferentiation, and mediates some of the positive influences on metabolic disorders through increase of energy expenditure. The exact regulation of Ir secretion and action is unknown but positive associations of ci...

Background: OTX2 is expressed in the human brain and plays a key role in the eye development. OTX2 mutations are reported in patients with ano/microphtalmia, optic nerve or optic chiasm hypoplasia, ocular coloboma and retinal dystrophies, associated in some cases with brain or pituitary abnormalities.Objective and hypotheses: Most of OTX2 mutations are nonsense or frameshift, more rarely missense mutations occur.Method: We...

Background: The IGF1 receptor (IGF1R) gene is located on the distal long arm of chromosome 15 (15q26.3). Heterozygous inactivating mutations of the IGF1R gene cause intrauterine and postnatal growth failure and mental retardation.Objective: The purpose of this research is to determine the most effective GH treatment for patients with IGF1R haploinsufficiency due to heterozygous deletion.Method: We investigated the clinical course o...