ESPE Abstracts

Background: The growth process that transforms a newborn into an adult implies that there is not only an increase in height but above all a constant change in body proportions. Knowledge of the body proportions gives insight into the natural process of maturation and any disturbance can be used as a diagnostic tool.Objective and hypotheses: Manual measurement of body dimensions is a highly time-consuming procedure requiring a variety of measurement tools...

Background: Paediatric transgender individuals are reported, as adults, to be disproportionately affected by barriers to care, mental health problems, suicide, violence, discrimination, poverty, and HIV compared to the general population possibly due to stigma and discrimination (1). Knowing the denominator of people at risk is necessary for assessing the incidence of diseases, setting medical priorities and goals, and advocating for care programs (1).Ob...

Background: Aurantiasis cutis is a condition of yellowish or golden skin discoloration that can result from eating excessive amounts of foods containing carotene leading to hypercarotenemia, described causing secondary amenorrhea.Objective and hypotheses: Hypercarotenemia can cause secondary amenorrhea without overconsumption of excessive quantities of carotene.Method: A 16-year-old girl presented to our endocrine outpatient clinic...

Background: GH is secreted in a pulsatile manner. The resulting GH peaks are known to be associated with growth, whereas the trough levels between the peaks are thought to be associated with metabolism in different tissues. GH trough levels were identified as a metabolically active signal in rats in the 1980th leading to differences in fat patterning with central obesity. Obese children are known to have low bone mass and bone mass is reduced in short children.<p class="ab...

Background: It has been reported that short-term increases of the bone formation markers intact amino-terminal propeptide of type I procollagen (PINP), bone-specific alkaline phosphatase (BALP) and osteocalcin display different temporal patterns. In adults, the biphasic model of GH action in bone remodelling shows that GH treatment results initially in an increased bone resorption with a concomitant bone loss, which later on is followed by increased bone formation. In children...

SHOX deficiency causes a spectrum of clinical phenotypes related to skeletal dysplasia and short stature, including Léri-Weill dyschondrosteosis, Langer mesomelic dysplasia, Turner syndrome, and idiopathic short stature. SHOX controls chondrocyte proliferation and differentiation, bone maturation, cellular growth arrest and apoptosis via transcriptional regulation of its direct target genes NPPB, FGFR3, and CTGF. However, our u...

Human growth is a complex trait. A considerable number of gene defects have been shown to cause short stature, but there are only few examples of genetic causes of non-syndromic tall stature. Besides rare variants with large effects and common risk alleles with small effect size, oligogenic effects may contribute to this phenotype. Exome sequencing was carried out in a tall male (height 3.5 SDS) and his parents. Filtered damaging variants with high CADD scores were validated b...

Background: Very tall people attract a lot of attention and represent a clinically and genetically heterogenous group of individuals. Identifying the genetic etiology can provide important insights into the molecular mechanisms regulating linear growth.Methods and Results: We studied a three-generation pedigree with several isolated (non-syndromic) tall members by whole exome sequencing; the tallest man had a height of 2...

Background: Congenital hypothyroidism (CH) is the most common endocrine disorder in neonates and is predominantly caused by developmental abnormalities known as thyroid dysgenesis (TD). Several transcription factors have been described in its aetiology, but defects in the known genes only account for a small proportion of cases.Methods: To identify novel genes involved in TD, we performed exome sequencing in 7 unrelated ...

Background: Differences in sexual development (DSD) are rare diagnoses, which affect the chromosomal, anatomical or gonadal sex differentiation. Although comprehensive counseling of patients and parents/carers is necessary to ensure a positive coping with the diagnosis and a well-informed decision-making, standardised programmes are lacking. Empower-DSD is a government-funded project, which developed an age-adapted multidisciplinary education programme to impr...