ESPE Abstracts

Background: The emotional distress of caregivers (i.e., parents) of children with long-term conditions affects their self-management behaviors, including treatment adherence. These conditions are diverse and prevalent, including diabetes, obesity, and growth hormone disorders (GHD). The caregivers’ emotional well-being is then a core aspect of their own quality of life, and their children’s. Emerging digital therapeutics solutions may improve such ...

MOPD is known to be caused by homozygous loss-of-function mutations in a specific gene, PCNT. Both intra- and interfamilial clinical variability (even for the same variant) have been frequently observed, which makes it difficult to infer a genotype–phenotype correlation. Pericentrin (PCTN) is a structural protein expressed in the centrosome that plays a fundamental role in anchoring protein complexes, regulating mitotic cycle and thus cell proliferation. High levels of m...

Failure to thrive is a term used to describe inadequate growth or the inability to maintain growth, which usually occurs in early childhood. Case report: female patient, 7 months old, referred to the pediatric clinic of Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre due to a possible syndromic condition. He had no diagnosed comorbidity to date and was using only prophylactic ferrous sulfate and vitamin D. No family history of similar illness. Physical examination showed hypertric...

Deficiency of pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A2 (PAPP-A2), a regulator of IGF-1 availability, causes postnatal growth failure in humans and mice, at least in part through dysregulation of bone size and density. The present study aimed to determine the effects of Pappa2 gene deletion and the response to recombinant murine IGF-1 (rmIGF-1) on femur microstructure and composition. Hydroxyapatite-related crystallography and ionic substitutions were analyzed by X-ray p...

Background: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is an emerging disease in the pediatric population. The mechanisms responsible for the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and progression to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) in these patients are incompletely understood. Low serum insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) levels are associated with increased histologic severity of NAFLD. Growing evidence suggests that growth hormone (GH) and IGF-1 may have r...

Pregnancy associated plasma protein (PAPP)-A2 is an insulin-like growth factor (IGF) binding protein (BP) protease that regulates IGF-1 availability affecting postnatal growth. Mutations in human PAPP-A2 cause short stature and changes in bone size and mineral density. The present study aimed to characterize the effects of constitutive Pappa2 gene deletion on hypothalamic regulation of energy homeostasis in adult male and female mice. In addition to being sho...

Background: Autosomal dominant neurohypophyseal diabetes insipidus (adNDI) is characterized by arginine vasopressin (AVP) deficiency resulting from mutations in the AVP-NPII genePatients and Methods: We analyzed AVP-NPII gene in 13 kindreds with familial NDIAim: To describe the clinical and molecular features of Italian kindreds with adNDIResults</str...

Background: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is an emerging disease in the pediatric population. The association between T2D and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has been described; this increases the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). Recent evidence suggests that sizes and composition of HDL may be more important that HDL-C levels in predicting CHD. There is not data regarding the HDL subclasses distribution and composition in T2D youths with hepatic steatosis (HE).<p c...

Introduction: Recombinant GH is an effective treatment for short children who are born small for gestational age(SGA). Short children SGA who fail catch-up growth by 4 years of age are candidates for GH treatment, at a dose of 35–70 μg/kg per day. Factors associated with response to GH treatment during the initial 2–3 years of therapy include age and height standard deviation scores at the start of therapy, midparental height, and GH dose. It is important to kno...

Background: Patients born small for gestational age (SGA) with additional syndromic features to short stature are likely to present with genetic causes.Aim: To perform a clinical and genetic-molecular investigation of a group of syndromic SGA patients without catch-up growth.Methods: We selected 118 patients born SGA [birth weight and/or length standard deviation score (SDS) ≤−2 for gestational age] without catch-up gro...