ESPE Abstracts

Background: Children born small-for-gestational-age (SGA) have a birth weight below 2,500 g at a gestational age over 37 weeks or a birth weight or length below the 3-rd percentile for gestational age. They usually recover growth during the first 6–12 months of life, but if not so, it is unlikely the recovery to happen after the age of two unless GH replacement therapy is initiated.Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the 1-st year growt...

Background: Acquired hypothalamic damage frequently causes obesity (BMI ≥30 kg/m2), often refractory to treatment. The interaction of hormonal, neuronal and psychological factors underlying hypothalamic obesity (HO) remains poorly understood.Methods: In fasted and fed states participants underwent blood sampling (GLP-1, insulin, PYY, ghrelin and glucose), fMRI scanning (viewing food/non-food photographs) and assessment of hunger and sati...

Background: In vitro fertilisation (IVF) has been widely used during the last decades. Increased susceptibility to birth defects and a higher cardiometabolic risk in children born after IVF than naturally conceived (NC) children have been reported. Also, a higher incidence of hyperthyrotropinemia has been noted in children born after IVF with respect to NC children and has been attributed to an epigenetic modification of the TSH set-point.Object...

Background: Little data exist regarding the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activation and the interplay between the HPA axis and markers of pro- and anti-oxidation in children, following an acute aerobic exercise bout in children.Objective and hypotheses: To investigate the changes of HPA axis hormones following an acute bout of aerobic exercise and their respective association with markers of pro- and anti- oxidation in normal weight and obes...

Background: ICSI is an assisted reproduction technique (ART) mainly used to overcome male infertility. Nowadays, ICSI is employed frequently due to its high success rate, despite it being highly invasive (i.e. epigenetic risk). Recent studies in ART offspring show a higher incidence of cardio-metabolic risk than in naturally-conceived (NC) controls. Thus, in our prior untargeted metabolomic study between ICSI and NC prepubertal girls, we demonstrated insulin resistance in the ...

Introduction: Thyroid hormone resistance (THR) is a rare disease (≈ 1/50000) mainly due to thyroid hormone receptor beta gene (THRB) mutations, generally identified in late childhood and adulthood. We report 2 atypical cases of neonatal diagnosis of THR.Case 1: The newborn presented with neonatal respiratory distress due to a voluminous compressive goiter, requiring invasive ventilation. Thyroid function test...

Background and Purpose: Previous studies have shown differences in serum, plasma, or saliva proteomics profile in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM), compared with healthy controls. The purpose of this prospective study is to identify the tear proteomics profile in children with T1DM that are followed at the Diabetes Center of the First Department of Pediatrics of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, at “Aghia Sophia” Chil...

Background: Pediatric growth hormone deficiency (pGHD) is associated with growth attenuation/deceleration, short stature, delayed bone maturation, and metabolic defects. Daily recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) treatment promotes linear growth and increases growth rate; however, it may present a substantial burden for patients and caregivers. This may lead to low adherence, limiting the clinical effect of treatment. This study assesses the health-related ...

Background: Puberty onset results from the interplay between genetic and environmental factors. During COVID-19 pandemic, children experienced epidemic-related changes, such as stress, sedentary lifestyle, excessive use of electronic devices, all leading to weight gain.Objective: The aim of our study is to retrospectively evaluate the incidence of premature activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, as eviden...

Introduction: Neutropenia is known as a rare adverse event of anti-thyroid drug treatment (ATD) but has also been reported as pre-treatment neutropenia in Graves’ disease (GD). Studies on paediatric patients are rare. To the best of our knowledge, there are no data comparing the effects of methimazole (MMI) and carbimazole (CBZ) treatment in children on the absolute neutrophil count (ANC).Methods: We analyzed retro...