ESPE Abstracts

Background: Childhood obesity is commonly associated with signs of endothelial dysfunction, characterized by impairment of insulin signaling and vascular NO availability. Recently both these features have been associated with endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, however the role of ER stress in the mechanism/s leading to vascular dysfunction in childhood obesity remains still to be established.Objective and Hypotheses: To evaluate ER stress and insulin-sti...

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...

Background: Central precocious puberty (CPP) results from premature activation of hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, which leads to an increased release of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). GnRH stimulates the development of secondary sexual features, rapid bone maturation and growth. GnRH agonists (GnRHa) represent the gold-standard therapy in CPP children and their use is responsible for pituitary GnRH receptors down-regulation, luteinizing hormone (L...

Background: ROHHAD/ROHHADNET syndrome (rapid-onset obesity with hypothalamic dysfunction, central hypoventilation, autonomic dysregulation with or without neural tumor - NET) – has been reported in association with cerebral venous thrombosis events, as reported also in central hypoventilation syndrome. It is not clear whether thrombotic risk represents a cause or a consequence of hypoventilation and hypothalamic dysfunction. Aim of our study was to chara...

Background: Childhood-onset obesity is a multifactorial disease with a lifelong health burden. In many cases, obesity is the result of the interaction between genetic predisposition and environmental factors. Aim of our study was to define phenotypic features of obese children and adolescents and to find possible associations between clinical phenotype and genetic variants.Patients and Methods: We recruited obese childre...

Background: Aluetta® Smartdot™ (Merck Healthcare KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany) is first of its kind digitally connected smart injection pen device for recombinant-human growth hormone (r-hGH) administration. Aluetta® pen with Smartdot™ knob attachment integrated with Growzen™ digital ecosystem enables healthcare professionals (HCPs) to remotely monitor adherence and achieve optimal clinical outcomes for patients....

Noonan syndrome (NS) is an autosomal dominant, variably expressed, multisystem disorder with an estimated prevalence of 1 in 1000–2500. In 2001, PTPN11 was the first gene associated to Noonan syndrome; now, at least 20 other genes have been discovered especially in the RAS–MAPK signalling pathway. More recently, missense mutations in RIT1 have been reported as causative of NS. A six-years female patient was referred to our Hospital for short stature (<-2 sds) an...

Background/objectives: Individuals born small-for-gestational age (SGA), especially those who experience postnatal catch-up growth, are at increased risk for developing endocrine-metabolic abnormalities before puberty. In adults, brown adipose tissue (BAT) has been associated with protection against metabolic disorders, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and dyslipidaemia. Here, we assessed for the first time whether BAT activation differs between prepubertal children born SGA o...

Background: Progranulin (PGRN) displays pleiotropic biological functions including on early embryogenesis, cell proliferation, lysosomal or neuronal functioning and wound repair, and has been proposed as a biomarker for metabolic diseases. Increased PGRN levels have been reported in type 2 diabetes, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and in preeclampsia associated to placental dysfunction. However, the ontogeny of PGRN concentrations and the potential value of P...

Introduction: Deficient anterior pituitary with variable immune deficiency (DAVID) syndrome is a rare condition characterized by symptomatic ACTH deficiency and primary hypogammaglobulinemia, caused by a heterozygous mutation in the NFKB2 gene (MIM#164012) on chromosome 10q24. We report the novel mutation of the NFKB2 gene in a Korean boy presenting with gait disturbance, calf pain, and abnormal thyroid function test.<s...