ESPE Abstracts

Background: Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is an autosomal recessive condition which leads to glucocorticoid deficiency. During childhood, the main aims of treatment are to prevent adrenal crisis and to achieve normal stature, optimal adult height and to undergo normal puberty. In adults, the aims of treatment are to prevent adrenal crisis, ensure normal fertility and to avoid long-term consequences of glucocorticoid use. Current treatment regimens for CAH with glucocort...

Background: Postnatal linear growth is characterized by a steady decline of growth velocity in healthy individuals, with the exception of sex-steroid induced pubertal growth. Pharmacologic interventions in growth disorders are limited to systemic application of growth factors such as growth hormone, and CNP analogues in conditions with FGFR3 overactivation. Tyrosine kinase receptor inhibitors (TKI) represent a heterogenous group of drugs, mostly used for oncol...

Background: Severe primary deficiency of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGFD) being characterized by growth failure and short stature in children, constitutes an indication to recombinant human IGF-1 (mecasermin) treatment. It is defined by serum insulin-like-growth factor-1 (IGF-1) levels less than or equal to 2.5 th percentile, height less than or equal to −3 S.D.S., normal growth hormone (GH) secretion and exlusion of secondary causes of IGFD.<p clas...

Background: Combined pituitary hormone deficiency (CPHD) may be congenital or acquired disorder, which affects more than one hormonal axis. Congenital hipopituitarism includes heterogenic group of disturbances. It may be result of mutations or deletions in genes for signaling and transcription factors responsible for pituitary development. The disorder might affect one or multiple family members. The age of appearance and intensity of the first hormone deficiency symptoms may ...

Relationship between polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and thyroid autoimmunity has been recently suggested by several authors. Autoimmune thyroiditis (AIT) is the most prevalent autoimmune disease and link between AIT and PCOS has been reported in adult women. There is a hypothesis that functional autoantibodies could contribute to the development of PCOS. The aim of the study was to evaluate the prevalence of thyroid autoimmunity in adolescent girls with PCOS. Forty five adol...

Background: Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal child development. Hypothyroidism, associated with insufficient amounts of free triiodothyronine and thyroxine, may not only cause poor growth rate, but also results in impaired central nervous system development. In Poland, newborn screening for congenital primary hypothyroidism, the incidence of which is reported to be 1:2500- 1:4000 births, has been performed for many years. Secondary hypothyroidism, cau...

Pathway involving insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) plays significant role in growth and development. Crucial role of IGF-1 was discovered inter alia through studies involving deficient patients with short stature, including SPIGFD individuals. Noteworthy, despite disturbances in proper growth, elevated values for selected stem cell populations were found in IGF-1 deficient patients. Therefore, here we focused on investigating role of these cells - very small embryonic-like...

Graves’ disease (GD) is hyperthyroidism associated with organ-specific autoimmune inflammation. GD occurs more frequently in adults than in children, however, pediatric patients are a therapeutic challenge due to cycles of remissions and relapses requiring constant monitoring at every stage of treatment administered. Dendritic cells (DCs) are considered a link between innate and adaptive immunity. DCs as antigen-presenting cells (APCs) are involved in antigen presentatio...

Introduction: The precise pathogenesis of Graves’ disease (GD) still remains unclear, especially in the field of immunological aspects. Thyroid infiltration by reactive T and B lymphocytes plays a crucial role in the course of autoimmune thyroid diseases (ATD). Previous pattern of inflammation process was characterized by the presence of two antagonistic groups of T effector or also called- helper cells: Th1 and Th2. Recently, more attention is paid to T...

Introduction: Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT) and Graves' disease (GD) become increasingly common in children's population. Pathogenesis of autoimmune thyroid diseases (AITD) bases on coexistence of genetic predisposition and environmental triggers which finally drive to breakdown of immune tolerance. Many mechanisms in human body moderate process of inflammation. While some of them answer for up-regulation, some agents like B regulatory lymphocytes (...