ESPE Abstracts

Background: Small birth size followed by accelerated weight gain in early life is associated with an increased risk for age-associated diseases, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD) in later life. The underlying causes for this are largely unknown. Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is a marker of biological age and short LTL is associated with increased CVD-risk. Subjects born small for gestational age (SGA) who remain short are treated with growth hormone (GH) to improve adult ...

Background: Subjects born preterm have an increased risk for ageing-associated diseases such as cardiovascular disease (CVD) in later life but the underlying cause is largely unknown. Telomere length (TL) is a usable index for ageing, with shorter TL indicating older biological age. Furthermore, short TL is associated with CVD.Objective and hypotheses: To investigate TL in subjects born preterm compared to term and to assess if TL is associated with risk...

Introduction: Majority of births in Sri Lanka occur in hospitals, with birth registration completed prior to discharge. When babies with atypical genitalia are missed at birth, and gender re-assignment decided, following later detection and evaluation, families faced many challenges to obtain a “clear” birth certificate (BC), without incriminating details of prior name or sex.Objectives: To describe character...

Background: Growth retardation is a common finding in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. Recombinant human GH (rhGH) has shown promising results in improving weight, height and clinical status of CF patients.Objective and hypotheses: In this study we aim to evaluate efficacy of rhGH on growth and clinical status in CF patients.Method: In this prospective clinical trial we recruited 34 CF patients (58.8% male with mean age of 62.05&#177...

Background: Familial PTC manifesting in childhood has been described only in single cases, mainly in the context of rare syndromes (APC-associated-syndrome, PTEN-hamartoma syndromes etc). PTC in Grave’s disease (GD) has been described in adults, but not in familial cases including young children.Objective and hypotheses: We investigated the association of large metastatic papillary carcinoma (PTC) in a 10 years old female and her mother evolving rap...

Background: There is limited data supporting concerns that systemic corticosteroids, prescribed in pregnancy for maternal health reasons, can suppress the neonatal Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis. Our study aimed to determine if neonates born to mothers on long-term or high dose steroids are at risk of adrenal suppression.Methodology: Neonates who underwent assessment of adrenal function over a seven-year perio...

Introduction: Paediatric adrenocortical tumors (ACT) include both benign adenomas and highly virulent malignant tumors. However, it is very rare among children. The aim of this study is to evaluate the clinicopathological data of children presented with ACT and to assess the survival.Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study which includes patients diagnosed with ACT from August 2020 to July 2021 and followed up at L...

Background: Measuring testicular volume (TV) by orchidometer is a standard method of pubertal staging in boys. A paucity of evidence exists as to its inter and intra-user reliability and the impact of clinicians’ gender, training and experience on the accuracy of measurements.Objective and hypotheses: We engineered prosthetic models of different size testes to investigate the reliability of TV estimation.Method: The study was ...

Introduction: Growth hormone (GH) therapy has revolutionized the management of patients with short stature. Its common use was first limited to GH deficient children, but now it has been widnened to various other clinical conditions.The aim of our study is to compare the response to GH therapy in patients with GH deficiency (GHD), with those with Turner syndrome and patients small-for-gestational age (SGA).Materials and Methods: We condu...