ESPE Abstracts

Background: Pituitary gigantism is a rare disorder. Paediatric endocrinologists may see at most one or two patients during their careers. In one large series of 2367 children and adolescents with pituitary adenomas, only 15 (0.6%) had pituitary gigantism. Much of our understanding is derived from isolated case reports and extrapolation from the adult literature. No sex predilection is known. Gigantism may occur at any age, and has been observed as early as the first 6–9 m...

Context: Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH)-stimulated inferior petrosal sinus sampling (IPSS) has an important role in the differential diagnosis of hypercortisolism of pituitary or ectopic origin as the most accurate procedure in terms of sensitivity and specificity compared with clinical, biochemical and imaging analyses. However, due to the cost and unavailability issues of CRH, desmopressin may be an alternative to CRH during IPSS.<p class="abstext...

Background/aims: Pilocytic astrocytomas (PA) are low-grade neoplasms that affect the precortical visual pathway and are most commonly detected in children and adolescents, representing 2–5% of childhood central nervous system (CNS) tumours. Optic gliomas (OPGs) can occur sporadically, or in association with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1). We assessed the prevalence of endocrine dysfunction in children with PA and evaluated outcomes between subgroups of P...