ESPE Abstracts

Background: Adipocyte fatty acid binding protein (aFABP) regulates intracellular transport of fatty acids and seems to be involved in the pathogenesis of the Metabolic Syndrome. aFABP overproduction leads to increased cholesterol and triglyceride accumulation and to higher expression of pro-inflammatory genes. In adults aFABP seems to promote insulin resistance and atherosclerosis, and aFABP levels are significantly higher in obese compared to lean subjects. Fat mass, lipid ma...

Background: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) represents one of the most common complains for adolescent girls to present to endocrinologist. PCOS has the potential to affect the young person both metabolically, physically, psychologically and socially.Objective: To evaluate the metabolic and psychological consequences of PCOS in adolescent girls.Method: Adolescent girls admitted in the Endocrinology Department of Children Emergency...

SHOX deficiency causes a spectrum of clinical phenotypes related to skeletal dysplasia and short stature, including Léri-Weill dyschondrosteosis, Langer mesomelic dysplasia, Turner syndrome, and idiopathic short stature. SHOX controls chondrocyte proliferation and differentiation, bone maturation, cellular growth arrest and apoptosis via transcriptional regulation of its direct target genes NPPB, FGFR3, and CTGF. However, our u...

Introduction: Patients homozygous for mutation in the PCSK-1 gene present clinically with severe congenital diarrhea and variable hormonal defects due to lack of enzyme/prohormone processing by Prohormone Convertase 1/3 (PC1/3). Although absence of spontaneous puberty has been reported in patients with PCSK-1 mutations, no peptide hormone(s) in the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal axis (HPG) have been reported to be dependent on PC1/3 cleavage. Here we studied t...

Background: Hypoglycaemia in patients with a high concentration of insulin and low concentration of C-peptide can be secondary to administration of exogenous insulin. This often results in safeguarding measures, with significant consequences for the patient and family. We report a novel case of a patient with symptomatic hypoglycaemia. Initial results suggested high insulin and low C-peptide levels, but subsequent testing revealed a pro-insulin processing diso...

Background: The assignment to type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) can be confirmed by the determination of diabetes-specific autoantibodies. Five different antibodies can be determined. The determination of several antibodies is more expensive than the determination of a single antibody. In times of scarce resources, the sequential determination of antibodies could save costs. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of antibodies and their age and gen...

Background: Severe Ovarian Dysgenesis (OD), a rare heterogeneous XX disorder of Sex Development (XX-DSD) presents clinically with primary amenorrhea, hypergonadotrophic hypogonadism and infertility. The genetic basis of OD remains unknown in about 70% of cases. To identify novel causes of OD, we study patients in which known genes have been excluded.Methods: Whole-exome-sequencing was performed on DNA extracted from peri...

Introduction: Differences in sex development (DSD) comprise a heterogeneous group of congenital conditions that affect human sex determination and differentiation. We aimed to describe the clinical diagnoses of children with DSD who were referred to a pediatric tertiary center, and to examine trends in clinical features and management over three decades.Methods: This is a retrospective, cross-sectional study of children ...

Objective: Recent studies have suggested earlier onset of pubertal development in boys. As assessment with orchidometer tends to overestimate true testicular volume (TV), and measurements based on ultrasound (US) have been proposed as a more reliable method, we present US based references in 6-16 year-old Norwegian boys. Our results are compared with data from Europe and the United States (U.S.) in order to establish evidence for an ongoing secular trend in ma...

Background: Maternal overweight/obesity during pregnancy and excessive gestational weight gain (GWtG) have been recognized as important early-life risk factors for childhood obesity. We aimed to examine whether maternal BMI at 20 weeks of gestation and excessive GWtG were associated with alterations in body composition and metabolism in childhood in the offspring of primiparous mothers who participated in a randomised controlled trial of exercise regimen during pregnancy.<...