ESPE Abstracts

Background and Aim: Several genetic variants associating with hepatic fat content in adults have been identified in genome-wide association studies. Their effects in children remain unclear. This study aimed to test the effect of genetic variants known to associate with hepatic fat in adults, individually and combined as a genetic risk score (GRS), on cardiometabolic traits, and to investigate the predictive ability of the GRS for hepatic steatosis in children...

Context: The early activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis during infancy can be used in the evaluation of infants suspected of disorders of sex development (DSD). However, few data exists on sex-specific reference ranges for these hormones during early life.Objective: To evaluate sex-differences in reproductive hormone concentrations in serum from healthy infants in order to define sex-specific cut-off values and to apply these in infants ...

Background: Minipuberty denotes a transient activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) hormone axis in infancy. This activation provides an opportunity to examine the gonadal function in infants suspected of hypogonadism before the axis is silenced during childhood. However, female minipuberty remains poorly elucidated. Objective: The study aimed to evaluate dynamic changes in luteinizing hormone (LH), follic...

Background: Childhood obesity and related co-morbidities are increasing world wide and consequently effective treatment interventions are much needed.Objective and hypotheses: The aim was to investigate concomitant changes in body composition in relation to changes in BMI–SDS during The Children’s Obesity Clinics Treatment (TCOCT) program. Hypothesis: reductions in body fat percentage may not be revealed by reductions in BMI–SDS.<p cla...

Background: Intermittent breast budding (girls entering stage B2 and then subsequently regressing to B1) in healthy girls is a frequent phenomenon observed by most clinicians. However, little is known of normal progression of female puberty, and the phenomenon of transient breast development has, to our knowledge, never been studied in details.Objective and hypotheses: We present and validate the female Puberty Nomogram indicating age specific SD<...

Introduction: De novo and inherited cases of 16p11.2 microdeletion and duplication syndromes have a spectrum of clinical manifestations, with incomplete penetrance and variable expressivity.16p11.2 copy number variants have shared phenotypic features (autism, developmental delay). Mirror phenotypes have also been described: deletions – obesity, hyperphagia, macrocephaly; duplications – underweight, feeding/eating disor...

Introduction: The complications of obesity are well recognised and documented in the adult population. There is little data available that reports the complications of childhood obesity seen in clinical practice. The aim of our study is to investigate the different types of complications seen in children and young people (CYP) with obesity.Methods: 125 CYP aged 0-18 years who had a body mass index (BMI) standard deviatio...

Congenital hypopituitarism (CH) is a highly variable disorder affecting 1:3000 - 1:4000 live births, and is characterized by deficiencies in one or more of the 7 pituitary hormones, with growth hormone (GH) being the most frequently-occurring deficiency. It may be associated with a range of syndromic features including visual impairment, midline brain abnormalities and facial clefting. The development of the pituitary gland is closely associated with that of the forebrain and ...

Introduction: Childhood obesity is associated with pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes mellitus. The gold standard investigation for these is an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). The aim of our study is to investigate glycaemic dysregulation in children and young people (CYP) with obesity using continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and evaluate the effect of intense lifestyle intervention on various complications.Methods: 3...

Background: Sexual maturation is closely linked to growth, suggesting common pathways between the reproductive development and the growth hormone/insulin-like growth factor-I (GH/IGF-I) axis. IGF-I bioavailability is regulated by Pregnancy associated plasma protein-A (PAPP-A), Pregnancy associated plasma protein-A2 (PAPP-A2) and Stanniocalcin 2 (STC2). A large genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified PAPP-A, PAPP-A2 and STC2 to represent loci strongly a...