ESPE Abstracts

Background: A recent report (JCI, 2014) described a new homozygous NR5A1/SF-1 mutation in a patient with XY DSD and spleen agenesis. To date, no other data have confirmed this association, raising the hypothesis of fortuity.Case presentation and method: We had the opportunity to study an adolescent girl referred for virilisation during puberty. She presented voice deepening and clitoral hypertrophy. Biological investigations showed high plasma testostero...

Background and methods: Sellar and suprasellar tuberculomas are extremely rare in children and most often patients present with headache, vomiting, visual disturbances, and hypofunction of the pituitary gland. Here, we report a girl with hypothalamic obesity, that recovers after antituberculosis treatment.Findings: An 11-year old girl presented with headache, fever and anorexia that progressively evolved into an encephal...

Background: CHARGE syndrome is a variable entity. Clinical diagnosis is based on the Blake-Verloes criteria and can be confirmed by identifying a mutation in CHD7. Hypoplasia of the genitalia is a common feature and is most often attributable to hypogonadotropic hypogonadism which is described in 81% of the males and 93% of the female patients. Other genital anomalies are rare. Combined agenesis of the uterus and ovaries is so far only reported in one patient with sus...

Polycystic ovary syndrome is the most common cause of hirsutism and menstrual irregularity in adolescent girls and young women. It is often accompanied by obesity and insulin resistance and is associated to lifelong co-morbidities, including subfertility, type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, pre-menopausal cancer, depression, low health-related Qol, and pregnancy and offspring complications. PCOS in adolescent girls is commonly driven by fat excess in subcutaneo...

Sex differentiation and development are complex processes reflecting the precise spatiotemporal expression of specific genes and interactions among gene products. In some instances, peripheral blood karyotype diverges from anticipated findings based on phenotypic features. Ascertaining for chromosomal mosaicism aids the shared decision-making discussions with families and other health care providers. We have investigated for sex chromosome mosaicism in 13 patients by using flu...

Background: Telomere length at birth is a major determinant of telomere length in late adulthood. However, the prenatal setting of telomere length is poorly understood. Individuals born large from non-diabetic mothers are at lower risk for later-life disorders than those born small, a feature of their longer health span being a higher lean mass that provides more muscle strength and that is already present in infancy.Objective, hypotheses & methods: ...

Background: Adolescents presenting with persistent gender dysphoria (GD) may undergo pubertal suspension via the use of GnRH analogues such as triptorelin (Gonapeptyl Depot) to allow further consideration of the dysphoria. Locally, a standard monthly dose of this drug is administered for an initial target duration of 12 months prior to re-assessment.Objective and hypotheses: The need to obtain full gonadotrophin and sex hormone suppression to ensure accu...

Introduction: Adolescent polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is characterized by androgen excess and oligo-amenorrhea, and often results from ectopic lipid storage due to a mismatch between early adipogenesis and later lipogenesis. Endogenous HOTAIR and exogenous pioglitazone are enhancers of subcutaneous adipogenesis, particularly in the gluteofemoral region. The A allele of HOTAIR rs1443512 is an equivalent of a natural knock-down and is thus a candidate to inf...

Insulin resistance and hepato-visceral (central) fat excess are thought to contribute to an earlier timing of adrenarche/pubarche and puberty/menarche; this earlier timing in turn relates often to a mismatch between pre- and postnatal weight gain, which can be estimated by calculating the Z-score change from birth weight (BW) to body mass index (BMI) in childhood. We tested the hypothesis that this calculation may serve as a proxy of insulin resistance and hepato-visceral adip...

Background: Early genetic diagnosis in patients with disorders of sex development (DSDs) can facilitate clinical management, predict recurrence risks, and augment general knowledge. Novel techniques such as SNP microarrays, GWAS, and exome sequencing have identified mutations in the coding regions of genes linked to DSDs. In some instances, variants in non-coding regions have been associated with 46,XY gonadal dysgenesis, e.g. deletions upstream of SOX9 (PLoS One 2011...