ESPE Abstracts

Background: It has been previously reported that with current management, 9/10 children with craniopharyngioma will survive 10 years. Though most suffer both chronic neuroendocrine and cognitive impairments from disease and/or treatment, few prospective cognitive assessments have been reported which might separate the contributions of each.Objective and hypotheses: i) To prospectively evaluate the prevalence of cognitive dysfunction, before and after a c...

Aims: Although rare, craniopharyngiomas are the commonest suprasellar tumour in childhood. Despite high overall survival, children and young people <19 years with craniopharyngiomas are at risk of multiple relapses and long-term tumour- and treatment-related neuroendocrine, cognitive and visual morbidity. A recent international survey highlighted the considerable variation in management strategies employed for these tumours, and the lack of any evidence- a...

Aim of the Study: ADAM/ADAMTS family members encode extracellular, multidomain proteolytic enzymes. Mutant Adamts16 mice display cryptorchidism and sterility. We hypothesize that gonadotropin-regulated ADAM/ADAMTS genes are involved in testicular development during mini-puberty.Patients and Methods: Testicular biopsies for histological and RNA-Sequencing analysis from bilateral cryptorchid boys were analyzed. RNA samples...

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: Prediction of response to recombinant GH (r-GH) is currently based on regression modelling. This approach generates a prediction equation which can be applied to data from an individual child. However this method can underestimate the effect of inter-dependent variables. Random forest classification (RFC) is an alternative prediction method based on decision trees that is not sensitive to the relationships between variables.Objective and hypo...

Background: GRB10 negatively regulates IGF1 signalling, influences growth and promoter polymorphisms are associated with GH response1. GRB10 knockout-mouse models display foetal overgrowth2, however, the mouse model has only partial similarity to human growth3. There is evidence that the zebrafish is an appropriate model to study growth4 and has the advantage of being easily genetically manipulated.<p class="abs...

Objective: Hospitalization in pediatric intensive care unit due to critical illness may be life threatening condition associated with severe acute physical stress and concomitant hormonal changes. Whether these changes represent an adaptive response or need to be treated is still not known.Methods: Pituitary hormones evaluation in four patients who were hospitalized in pediatric intensive care unit due to different sever...

Background: Low stress resilience in late adolescence and psychosocial traumatic events in adulthood have been linked to a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2DM) later on in life. However, limited data is available regarding whether prior stressors are related to the risk of developing T2DM in adolescence.Objective: We sought to determine the potential association between prior toxic stressors and T2DM in adolescence.Desi...

Background: The diagnosis of Growth Hormone Deficiency (GHD) involves the use of GH stimulation tests that require day case admission, multiple blood sampling and are associated with significant adverse effects.Aim: To assess the utility of gene expression (GE) profiling and candidate SNP analysis for the diagnosis of and classification of GHD.Method: Pre-pubertal treatment-naïve children with GHD (n=98) were enrolled from the...

Background: Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the promotor and 5’UTR of the transcriptional factor, ZBTB38, are associated with adult height and idiopathic short stature although their precise auxological effects have not previously been described. In addition, the molecular mechanisms through which ZBTB38 affects growth have not been fully elucidated but potential downstream mediators are suggested to include MCM10 or IGF2.Objectives: <...