ESPE Abstracts

Objective: Craniopharyngioma is a benign brain tumour with frequent local recurrence after treatment. Growth hormone replacement therapy (GHRT) is prescribed in children with growth hormone deficiency due to childhood-onset craniopharyngioma. The objective was to evaluate whether shorter time delay of GHRT initiation after childhood-onset craniopharyngioma completion therapy increased the risk of recurrence.Design: Our r...

Background: Congenital hypothyroidism (CH) is the most common neonatal endocrine disorder, with an incidence of 1:3000 neonates, and one of the most frequent preventable causes of mental retardation worldwide. Most (65%) cases of primary permanent CH are due to thyroid dysgenesis (TD). However, a genetic cause is identified in less than 5% of CH due to DT.Methods: We performed WES (Whole Exome Sequencing) for siblings with childhood-onset TD and we analy...

Purpose: Isolated growth hormone deficiency (IGHD) is a rare condition mainly caused by mutations in GH1. The aim of this study was to assess the contribution of GHRHR mutations to IGHD in a very large cohort of patients.Methods: All GHRHR coding exons and flanking intronic regions were sequenced in 312 unrelated patients with non-syndromic IGHD. Functional consequences of all newly identified missense variants were assessed <e...

Background: GLI2 is a zinc-finger transcription factor of the SHH signaling pathway, expressed during ventral forebrain and pituitary development. GLI2 mutations account for microforms of dominant holoprosencephaly. So far, only 15 unambiguous mutations were found in hypopituitarism –essentially combined pituitary hormone deficiency (CPHD)– frequently associated with holoprosencephaly-like malformations and/or polydactyly.Objective and...

Background: Bi-allelic GHR mutations are classically responsible for Laron syndrome, a severe growth hormone (GH) resistance syndrome. A few GHR missense mutations have also been implicated in mild GH resistance or idiopathic short stature. IGFALS mutations are responsible for recessive or semi-dominant short stature with normal GH provocative test contrasting with extremely low IGF-I levels.Objective and hypotheses: To assess the contribution of GHR and...

Background: Although GH’s safety profile since 1987 is good, concerns remain regarding cancer (CA) risk, and French SAGhE data indicated increased mortality and cerebrovascular disease (CVD) in certain GH-treated patients (pts).Objective and hypotheses: To evaluate key safety outcome incidence in GH-treated pts of all short stature diagnoses (dx) who participated in GeNeSIS (1999–2015, 30 countries).Methods: Pt history/ca...

Background: Twenty-three national healthcare networks for rare diseases were identified in 2014 as part of the French scheme on rare diseases. The rare endocrine disease national healthcare network FIRENDO (www.firendo.fr) includes six centers of reference with complementary fields of expertise certified between 2005 and 2006, 30 centers of competence covering all French regions, 18 research and 37 diagnostic laboratories, 5 national learned...

Despite significant advances in the medical management of childhood diseases, glucocorticoids (GCs) continue to be the mainstay of therapy for numerous serious conditions, including hematological malignancies, Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and inflammatory disorders. In order to understand the natural history of bone development in GC-treated children, a pan-Canadian longitudinal observational research study called "STOPP" (STeroid...

Catch-up growth (CUG) is characterized by a period of supranormal height velocity following a transient period of growth inhibition. The two classical hypotheses on the mechanism are the neuro-endocrine hypothesis (a central mechanism that would recognize the degree of mismatch between actual size and target size) and the growth plate hypothesis (local regulation of growth according to a preset cellular program of senescence, characterized by decreasing growth proliferation ra...

Study of the histopathology of human type 1 and 2 diabetes through the national pancreatic organ donor (nPOD) consortium has yielded interesting new insights that should also aid us in developing improved therapeutic approaches.1. When insulitis is observed, it usually shows a predominance of CD8 T cells, some of which are autoantigen specific (see also Coppieters et al. JEM 2012). It will be therapeutically challenging to remove/prevent CD8 mem...