ESPE Abstracts

Introduction: Obesity is a multifactorial disease resulting from an interplay between genetics and the environment. Metabolic, nutritional, psychosocial, and lifestyle factors participate, promoting various degrees of overweight or obesity. Pediatric obesity increases after infancy and is higher in early adulthood, showing a heritability of up to 85%. Genetic variants associated with BMI in children can exert their effects by affecting eating behavior, as is t...

Background: The male Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Gonadal (HPG) axis undergoes a transient activity phase during the first months of life with surging serum concentrations of reproductive hormones. Theoretically, the hormonal surge could represent a passive postnatal feedback to the withdrawal from the high sex steroid levels in pregnancy. However, we believe that minipuberty rather represents an active, tightly genetically-regulated biological process. We therefore...

Background: The circulating steroid metabolome in boys undergoes significant changes during infancy reflecting functional and structural rearrangements of the adrenal glands as well as the transient activity of the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis, also called minipuberty. Studies investigating the serum steroid metabolome dynamics during infancy in a longitudinal manner are however sparse.Objective: We ai...

Background: Melanocortin 4 receptor (MC4R) deficiency is the commonest monogenic form of non-syndromic obesity. MC4R is a seven transmembrane G-protein coupled receptor implicated in central regulation of body weight. The loss-of-function mutations in MC4R gene will contribute to early-onset obesity associated with hyperinsulinemia, hyperphagia and “binge eating”. We aim to determine the prevalence of MC4R variants in a Pediatrics...

Background: Thyroid cancer (TC) caused by germline mutations most often manifests in childhood. Hereditary forms of TC are divided into two groups: non-medullary and medullary thyroid cancer (MTC). A mutation in RET gene can be detected in about 95% of patients with MTC. If a mutation in RET gene is found, prophylactic thyroidectomy is recommended.Aim: To demonstrate the importance of molecular genetic ...

Background: Loss of imprinting has been implicated in the pathogenesis of several human diseases. Monogenic causes of central precocious puberty (CPP) were identified in families with loss-of-function mutations in two paternally expressed imprinted genes: Makorin zinc finger 3 (MKRN3) and Delta-like 1 homolog (DLK1). The role of imprinting defects in CPP has not been described so far.Objective: To inves...

Background: Children born small for gestational age (SGA) exhibit wide variations in the activity of growth hormone (GH)/insulin–like growth factor–I (IGF-I) axis and this heterogeneity may result in supra physiological concentrations of IGF-I during GH treatment. The long-term effects of elevated IGF-I levels has been a matter of concern. We explored the variations in total IGF-I and bioactive IGF-I and the associations with growth and glucose metab...

Background: Using ultrasound to examine the glandular breast tissue is a promising method for staging pubertal breast development. However, breast ultrasound for this purpose has not been explored in a large sample of healthy girls in different developmental stages, and normative data have been unavailable.Objective: To present novel pubertal references for breast ultrasound stages, Tanner breast (B) and pubic hair (PH) ...

Backgrounds/Aims: Studies related to changes in thyroid hormone metabolism in the course of chronic liver diseases have been conducted mostly in adults. In this study, we aimed to investigate the thyroid dysfunction in childhood chronic liver diseases.Methods: Between 2005 and 2018, 960 chronic liver disease patient file that followed in our gastroenterology department are reviewed. Among all study subjects, 107 (53 fema...

Introduction: The most common causes of hyperthyroidism in the pediatric age group are autoimmune conditions (Graves' disease or Hashitoxicosis). Hyperfunctioning thyroid carcinomas are rarely reported. In this case report, we present a 17-year-old girl who was diagnosed with papillary thyroid carcinoma upon testing for hyperthyroidism.Case: A 17-year-old girl had presented to another center with a 1-month history of...