ESPE Abstracts

In the 1950s, Lawson Wilkins and colleagues described cortisone therapy for classic congenital adrenal hyperplasia due to 21-hydroxylase deficiency (21OHD). Wilkins also correctly reasoned that cortisol, derived from cortisone, would exert negative feedback on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and lower adrenal-derived androgens. In the decades following commercial availability of glucocorticoids, children with 21OHD have survived into adulthood; however, long-term compl...

Though presenting the analytical techniques with a more longstanding tradition, mass spectrometry based methods had been until lately superseded by the faster immunoassay techniqes in the field of endocrinology. However, the introduction of fast commercial direct immunoassays has led to a dramatic loss in specificity, especially in the field of pediatric endocrinology. For a long time the enormous analytical power of chromatography and mass spectrometry based techniques regard...

Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is one of the commonest forms of primary adrenal insufficiency with an incidence of about 1 in 15,000. Several studies highlighted the suboptimal health status and care provision in adults with CAH that were associated with significant co-morbidities in relatively young adults. The onset and progression of problems and their interrelation with clinical management remain unclear. However, it appears of paramount importance to prevent and red...