ESPE Abstracts

Background: The human foetal adrenal (FA) undergoes vast physiological changes as pregnancy progresses. Original descriptions of FA development emerged following morphometric studies from spontaneous/medical terminations. These revealed the greatest increase in FA size was during the first trimester. Recently, sonographic evaluation of human FA volume and length has led to the creation of normal FA growth centiles and correlations between FA size and estimated foetal weight (E...

Innervation of the hypothalamic median eminence by Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone (GnRH) neurons is vital to ensure puberty onset and successful reproduction. However, the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying median eminence development and pubertal timing are incompletely understood. Here we show that Semaphorin-6A is strongly expressed by median eminence-resident oligodendrocytes positioned adjacent to GnRH neuron projections and fenestrated capillaries, and that Sem...

Background: ALS deficiency is characterized by mild short stature, delayed puberty, low serum IGF1, low serum IGFBP3 and undetectable serum ALS levels.Case: A 11.3 years old boy presented with short stature. He was born at term to consanguineous parents and the birth weight was unknown. On physical examination, his height and weight were 130.5 cm (−2.33 SDS) and 25.2 kg (−2.36 SDS) and he was prepubertal. The routine laboratory tests were nor...

Background: STAT5B deficiency is characterized by severe postnatal growth failure, low IGF1, elevated levels of GH and prolactin, and immunodeficiency. To date, only ten patients with seven different mutations have been described.Objective and hypotheses: Describe clinical characteristics of a novel homozygous frameshift mutation in STAT5B.Results: A 17-year-old female was referred for proportionate short stature and prima...