ESPE Abstracts

Background: The etiology of short stature is heterogeneous, often encompassing complex genetic disorders of difficult diagnosis. Analysis of chromosomic copy number variants (CNVs) has been demonstrating the important role of these genomic imbalances in population diversity and human disease.Objective and hypotheses: To analyze the frequency and describe novel submicroscopic chromosomal CNVs in a group of patients with short stature of unknown cause....

Background: Premature adrenarche (PA) has been considered a benign condition. Recently, associations with increase androgen levels and PCOS have arisen.Objective: To determine whether PA in children at pubertal onset (TII) determines a different timing of pubertal events and a different pattern of ovarian and adrenal hormones.Methods: A total of 583 girls from the longitudinal cohort (Growth and Obesity Cohort Study, born 2002) wer...

Background: Premature adrenarche (PA) has been considered a benign condition. Recently, associations with an increased metabolic risk have arisen. This risk may depend on ethnic background and infancy weight gain, which could be different by gender.Objective and hypotheses: To determine whether PA in children at pubertal onset (TII) determines a higher metabolic profile.Methods: 1190 children (49.9% female) from the longitudinal co...

Background: Pseudohypoaldosteronism type 1 (PHA1) is a rare syndrome characterized by unresponsiveness or resistance to the action of aldosterone. It manifests with persistent salt loss, resulting in hyponatremia, hyperkalemia and metabolic acidosis. High levels of aldosterone and renin activity, confirms the diagnosis. When the inheritance pattern is autosomal recessive it expresses as a severe systemic disease. Often occurs in the neonatal period and presents with recurrent ...

Background: LHX4 mutations are rare in combined pituitary hormone deficiency, and even rarer in isolated GHD.Objective and hypotheses: We describe a 14 years old boy who was referred for investigation of short stature.Methods and Results: Short stature, convergent strabismus, nystagmus was present. At the age of 5 years his gait was unstable. A progressive myopathy ensued. Tests of pituitary reserve showed partial IGHD (8....

Background: The WDR11 gene was recently involved in the pathogenesis of isolated hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (IHH). In 2010, Kim et al. (1) identified five different heterozygous missense WDR11 rare variants in six of 201 IHH patients (five normosmic IHH and one Kallmann syndrome), which were absent in more than 400 controls. Animal studies demonstrated that WDR11 interacts with EMX1, a homeodomain transcription factor involved in the development of olfacto...

Background: Pediatric Cushings syndrome is a rare condition and its diagnosis is always a challenge to the clinicians. The hypercortisolism can be classified as ACTH-dependent (Cushings disease) and ACTH-independent. The latter group comprises several hereditary conditions. One of them is primary pigmented nodular adrenocortical disease (PPNAD) which occurs isolated or as part of Carney complex (CNC). It is known that adult patients with Cushings syndrome due PPNAD exhibited a...

Background: In 2011, ATA and AACE published Guidelines on pediatric Graves’ disease (GD) treatment. Nevertheless it is still a controversy.Objective and hypotheses: SPEDP conducted the first nationwide questionnaire survey among all the Endocrinologists and Pediatricians in the Portuguese Public Health System Hospitals about pediatric GD treatment in order to know the reality in our country.Method: SPEDP designed and distribut...

Background: Iodine deficiency is the main cause of endemic goitre. A total of 29.8% of the world’s school-age children insufficient iodine intake. A population is deemed iodine-sufficient when median iodine levels are over 100 μg/l; measured iodine deficiency serves as a diagnostic criterion for determining the extent to which goitre is endemic, and also as an indicator of the gradual eradication of iodine-deficiency disorders.Patients, materia...

Background: Aortic dilation (AD) occurs in Turner syndrome (TS) increasing the risk of aortic dissection at all ages. There are no current guidelines on what specific aortic diameter measurement should provoke concern in pediatric TS. Because of their small stature, an aortic size index (ASI) has been proposed to normalize the ascending aorta (AA) to body size in young adults’ with TS. However, a more reliable index has been also proposed: the ratio of vascular diameter t...