ESPE Abstracts

Introduction: Developing an acute onset thyroid nodule is rare in children and usually associates with infectious or neoplastic disease; when linked to hyperthyroidism, the most likely diagnosis is toxic adenoma.Clinical description: 9-year-old boy with no relevant medical history was seen at the emergency department for acute cervical pain and tumor involving the left thyroid lobe with no inflammatory signs or history of trauma. Physical examination rev...

Introduction: PseudoCushing is an unusual pathology. Among adults several cases have been published, however, in paediatrics it is unusual.Objective: Description of a PseudoCushing case from a patient admitted in a hospital and results from a study to discard secondary hypercortisolism due to stress.Patients and methods: 13 years old patient that it is admitted in hospital due to v...

Background: Congenital growth hormone deficiency may be isolated (IGHD) or multiple pituitary hormone deficiency (MPHD). The Sonic Hedgehog signalling (SHH) pathway has an important role in the pituitary development and growth, acting early in ventral forebrain. The SHH signalling mediates its effects through three zinc fingers proteins (Gli1, Gli2 and Gli3), which lead to activation or repression of target genes. Several heterozygous GLI2 mutations have been reported in patie...

Background: In children, papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is generally sporadic and may, less frequently, be part of an undiagnosed hereditary tumor predisposition syndrome (HTPS). Somatic molecular testing is useful to understand tumor etiology and behavior, predict prognosis, and possibly guide development of novel treatment strategies. RET/PTC fusions were found to be associated with an increased risk of invasive disease. The aims of our study were to analyze...

Background: Being born small for gestational age (SGA) is an associated condition to nonspecific 46,XY DSD (without molecular diagnosis and with no specific disorders of undermasculinization). However, the underlying mechanism of the relationship between the presence of genital abnormalities and intrauterine growth restriction is unknown. The GH-IGF system is crucial for sex differentiation in mice and in humans, members of this system were detected in embryon...

Disorders of sex development (DSD) are those congenital conditions in which development of chromosomal, gonadal, or anatomical sex is atypical. The aim of this study was to characterize the histology of 46,XX DSD prepubertal gonads. We studied 25 gonads of fourteen 46,XX DSD patients. The age of biopsy/gonadectomy was 1.17 (0.08–4.17) years (median and range). Molecular studies confirmed the absence of SRY by PCR and/or MLPA in blood samples of all patients and i...

Introduction: Down syndrome (DS) is a chromosomal disorder. Children with DS have different height and weight patterns compared to children without DS. The aim of our study was to compare anthropometric parameters (expressed in standard deviation score-SDS) of people with DS using charts for DS and population (P) charts.Materials and Methods: The study group consisted of 114 patients with DS (64 girls), aged 4 months – 36 years (average age: 8.2 yea...

Background: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has forced the authorities to impose a lockdown to minimize the risk of infection. This extreme and prolonged situation has caused changes in habits, dietary and glycemic control in children with type 1 diabetes (T1D). Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and Flash glucose monitoring (FGM) have allowed health care professionals to a remote control of the patients.Aim: The aim of the stu...

Background: Newborns admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) are exposed to multiple painful and stressful procedures. It is postulated that high pain exposure in the first weeks of life can have a long-lasting impact on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Assessment of the salivary cortisol (SC) is a useful method for non-invasive monitoring of baseline activity and stress response of HPA axis.Objective: An...

Background: RARβ cooperates with Nur77 to in-vitro regulate HSD3B2 transcription. NUR77 expression parallels HSD3B2 expression with a much lower level in androgen-producing adrenocortical tissues (childhood virilizing adrenocortical tumours (VAT), fetal zone (FeZ) and zona reticularis, ZR). RARβ is down-regulated in starved, hyperandrogenic H295R cells. However, the mechanisms regulating this expression pattern and the relevance of RARβ to huma...