ESPE Abstracts

Introduction: Children with hypothalamic dysfunction, e.g. due to a genetic or acquired cause such as suprasellar tumours, often suffer from hyperphagia and/or decreased resting energy expenditure (REE). This process induces uncontrollable weight gain, resulting in severe hypothalamic obesity (HO). No effective treatment is available yet for HO. Amphetamines are psychostimulants that are known for their appetite reducing and REE stimulating side effects. Here,...

Background: Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is a rare condition characterised by adrenal insufficiency and a life-long risk of adrenal crises. There is a paucity of information on the epidemiology of acute adverse events in this population.Objective: To investigate the frequency, aetiology and consequences of acute adverse events attributed to adrenal insufficiency in CAH.Methods</stro...

Background: Silver-Russell syndrome (SRS) is a congenital developmental disorder characterised by pre- and post-natal growth failure, relative macrocephaly, hemihypotrophy, and fifth-finger clinodactyly. Recent studies have shown that gain-of-function mutations of CDKN1C result in IMAGe syndrome (IMAGeS) characterized by intrauterine growth restriction, metaphyseal dysplasia, adrenal hypoplasia congenita, and male genital abnormalities, whereas less severe gain-of-function mut...

Background/ Aim: Over the past 6 years, the IGF1/ IGFBP3 generation test (IGFGT) has been used in Belgium in a standardized form to identify children with severe primary IGF1 deficiency (SPIGFD). In this study, the discordance of the IGF1 and IGFBP3 responses during an IGFGT and the prevalence of SPIGFD were analyzed in a cohort of children with short stature (height SDS < - 2) and presenting with low (below lower reference limit) serum IGF1 level and norma...

Background: The ‘External Masculinization Score’ (EMS) is an objective method of scoring undervirilized genitalia in infants but may require further adaptation to capture the appearance of the genitalia more comprehensively across the phenotypic spectrum.Objective: To develop and validate a non-binary, standardized score that describes the range of appearance of external genitalia.Method: The external genitalia score (EGS...

Background and Aim: Recombinant growth hormone (GH) is reimbursed for the treatment of short stature (<-2.5 Z-score) in children born small for gestational age (SGA) without postnatal growth, aged ≥ 4 years with a height Z-score >1 below mid-parental height (MPH). We wanted to determine the current GH prescribing practices by pediatric endocrinologists (PE) for SGA related short stature and document the percentages of treated children at risk for...

Background: Silver Russell syndrome (SRS) is a heterogeneous disorder characterised by intrauterine and post-natal growth retardation, relative macrocephaly, protruding forehead, feeding difficulties and body asymmetry. Variants in HMGA2 are a rare cause of SRS and despite strong evidence for the crucial role of HMGA2 in growth regulation, its functional role in human linear growth is unclear.Methods: Patients w...

Background: Long-term outcome studies on bilateral testicular regression (BTR) are currently lacking, hampering counseling of patients and parents. Although a vascular origin was initially reported, recent studies revealed a genetic origin in a subset of patients (i.e. DHX37 gene variants). How this relates to patient outcomes remains unclear.Methods: Thirty-five patients with BTR were recruited in eight Belgian centers ...

Introduction: Klinefelter syndrome (KS) describes the phenotype of the most common sex chromosome abnormality in humans. About 80% of KS patients have 47,XXY karyotype, while rest of the patients can have mosaicism or other numeric or structural sex chromosome abnormalities. Tall stature is one of the hallmarks of KS and it is thought to be due to supernumerary X chromosome leading to SHOX gene overdosage. Deletion of SHOX gene, on the contrary, has been r...

Introduction: Short stature is a common manifestation of Noonan syndrome (NS). GH deficiency, GH insensitivity, and neurosecretory dysfunction have been reported in the literature. The optimal GH treatment for NS is still controversial. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the growth characteristics in addition to clinical features of NS, and the growth response to GH treatment by using a nationwide registration system.Material and methods: Children and a...