ESPE Abstracts

Down syndrome (DS) is characterized by a higher incidence of congenital hypothyroidism (CH) and a high prevalence of subclinical hypothyroidism (SH) early in life. Children and adults with DS have an increased risk of developing autoimmune thyroid disease, however CH and early SH cannot be explained by thyroid autoimmunity. The etiology of CH and early SH in DS remains to be elucidated. Considering the recently discovered genome-wide transcriptional and epigenetic alterations ...

Hypoparathyroidism is treated with oral calcium carbonate and vitamin D analogues to increase serum calcium levels. Recombinant human parathyroid hormone (rhPTH) therapy can be considered in patients with poorly controlled hypocalcaemia or side effects to conventional treatment. Constipation, a known side effect of calcium carbonate, is often easily managed with simple laxatives. We describe resolution of severe constipation by changing conventional treatment to rhPTH. A femal...

Background: Medium chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency (MCADD) is an autosomal recessive fatty acid β-oxidation defect. The enzyme is important in the breakdown of medium chain fats into acetyl-CoA to produce ketones, alternative energy source when glucose hepatic glycogen stores become depleted during prolonged fasting. In MCADD, during periods of fasting/ acute illness, there are insufficient ketones to compensate for the glucose energy deficit, ...

Growth response to daily GH treatment can be predicted using pre-treatment gene expression profiles.1 Once-weekly GH treatment potentially reduces the burden of daily injections2 and thus may be a major advancement in care for patients with GHD, vs standard, daily GH treatment. Here we investigate the prediction of first-year growth response based on pre-treatment blood transcriptome in children with GHD undergoing treatment with daily or once-weekly GH. ...

Background: Alterations of pre- and early postnatal growth can have long lasting impact on adult height, body composition and metabolic health throughout life. In monozygotic twins discordant for prenatal growth due to twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), we previously demonstrated lower cord blood IGF-I concentrations and earlier pubertal maturation, indicative of prenatal programming of endocrine systems, to be linked to reduced final height of the form...

Introduction: Abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) is subdivided into two depots by the fascia of Scarpa. The deep SAT (dSAT) and superficial SAT (sSAT) are morphologically and metabolically distinct, with dSAT reportedly being more similar to visceral adipose tissue (VAT) in terms of elevating the risk for obesity-related complications. Conversely, sSAT appears to be more similar to lower-body SAT. The relationship between dSAT and metabolic disease ha...

Background: Severe primary insulin-like growth factor-1 deficiency (SPIGFD) is a rare condition for which replacement therapy with recombinant human insulin-like growth factor-1 (rhIGF 1; mecasermin [Increlex®]) is approved for treatment in Europe and the USA. SPIGFD is defined as a height standard deviation score (HtSDS) ≤-3, and baseline IGF-1 <2.5th percentile (European indication) or ≤-3 SDS (USA indication) for age and gender, desp...

Introduction: Bone Health Index (BHI) determined by measurement of cortical thickness of metacarpalia II-IV in x-rays of the left hand represents a method to estimate bone health in children. Aim of this study was to investigate changes of BHI SDS in the course of growth hormone (GH) treatment.Method: 256 consecutive children with short stature (isolated GH deficiency (IGHD) n = 121, multiple pituitary hormone deficiency...

Background: Cardiometabolic (CM) risk is linked to being small for gestational age (SGA, birthweight <-2SDS). Fetal growth restriction (FGR) may not result in SGA. We focused on potential CM risk in children born following pregnancies at higher risk for FGR.Aims: To identify associations between fetal and childhood weight trajectory quartiles and CM risk markers. 2.To define molecular pathways potentially associated w...

Congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI) is a complex heterogeneous disease affecting 1 in 40.000 newborns. Recurrent hypoketotic hypoglycaemia led to permanent mental and motor disabilities in 30-40% of children. Histologically three types had been differentiated: focal, diffuse and atypical. Up to now, only focal-type CHI can be permanently cured by focus removal. Focal-type CHI is characterized by paternal inherited mutation of ABCC8 or KCNJ11 mutations. Therefore mutation anal...