ESPE Abstracts

Background: Prolonged severe hypothyroidism due to Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT) is a rare cause of pituitary hyperplasia (PH) in children. Loss of thyroxine negative feedback causes a TRH-dependent hyperplasia of pituitary thyrotroph cells resulting in adenohypophysis enlargement. A transdifferentiation of pituitary somatotroph cells into thyrotroph cells could explain growth failure in those patients. We report a case series of patients with growth impairment diagnosed...

Objectives: Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a complex multisystem disorder due to loss of expression of paternally derived genes in the PWS critical region on chromosome 15q11-q13. The majority of the cases are due to the deletion of this region (del15), while 20–30% are caused by a maternal uniparental disomy of chromosome 15 (UPD15). The clinical picture is characterized by neonatal hypotonia and feeding difficulties in early infancy, early development of hyperphagia wit...

Background: Numerous studies have shown that PWS patients demonstrate the preservation of insulin sensitivity despite severe obesity. Data about insulin secretion in PWS however, are still conflicting. Other reports showed that PWS subjects and simple obese controls had similar insulin levels and were both insulin resistant. These discrepancies could be due to the different clinical characteristics of the study groups, including age, weight excess levels and the presence/absen...

We report a case of hereditary hypophosphatemic rickets with hypercalciuria (Hereditary Hypophosphatemic Rickets with Hypercalciuria, HHRH) in a 13-year-old boy, referred for evaluation due to the onset of bilateral knee pain for about two years. Pain was intermittent and walking limiting and negatively affected quality of life. Negative family history of bone/joint pathologies and kidney stones. The parents are consanguineous (first cousins), have normal stature and no histor...

Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) is a rare genetic disease characterized by bone fragility and an increased risk of fractures. Intravenous bisphosphonates are the current gold standard for the treatment of OI: the aim of this therapy is an increase in Bone Mass Density (BMD) and a consequent reduction in pathological fracture rates. Currently, the only bisphosphonate approved in Italy for pediatric population is neridronate, infused in hospital once every four months. In San Raffa...

Aim: Few data are currently available on the reliability of the different anthropometric, instrumental and biochemical indexes in recognizing the presence of the metabolic syndrome (MetS) in severe childhood obesity. The objective of our study was to find out a simple and accurate index to use in deciding whether to initiate a search for MetS in this at-risk population.Patients and Methods: A retrospective study based on...

A 5-year-old Moroccan patient comes to our attention due to impaired gait with pain in the lower limbs, easy fatigue and poor gain in weight and stature. In the previous months he had some episodes of abdominal pain. During our first physical examination he was pale, with diffuse muscular hypotrophy, uncertain gait with an enlarged base, dubious hypertrophy of the calves and Gowers' sign. No varus / valgus of the lower limbs. Symmetrical and normo-evocable osteotendinous ...

Background: Paediatric pituitary adenomas comprise rare but challenging pathologies in children and adolescents related to their endocrine and neurological characteristics.Objective and Hypotheses: We aimed to describe a case report of growth hormone (GH)-secreting pituitary adenoma apoplexy.Method: a 11-year-old girl presented with fever, sudden headache with vomiting. She abruptl...

Backround: Craniopharingiomas are rare embryogenic malformations of the sellar and parasellar region with slow growth and high local recurrence rate. Due to their unfavorauble location, presurgical hypothalamic involvement and treatment-related hypothalamic damage is frequent and lead to hypothalamic syndrome.Objective: we compare weigh gain and growth pattern regarding to hypothalamic involvement of pediatric patients a...

Objective: There is no agreement about which index of adiposity and/or body composition is the most accurate in identifying the metabolic syndrome (METS). The aim of our study was to compare the accuracy of the different indexes in order to recognize the most reliable.Study Design: We evaluated 1332 obese children and adolescents (778 females and 554 males), aged 14.4 ± 1.8 yrs., Body Mass Index (BMI) standard devia...