ESPE Abstracts

Background: Tissue glucocorticoid sensitivity is characterized by a considerable variation in terms of therapeutic response and side effects to synthetic glucocorticoids. The multi-metabolite concentration profile measured by untargeted plasma metabolomics provides a comprehensive metabolic signature that might be used in clinical practice.Objective and Hypotheses: To investigate the usefulness of plasma metabolomics in identifying a metabolic signature ...

Background and aim: Epidemiologic observations suggest that women with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) often suffer from menstrual cycle disorders. There may also be a negative association between the age of onset of T1DM and the age of menarche. Delayed menarche, in turn, may be associated with increased risk for diabetic complications. The aim of this study was to prospectively investigate pathologic manifestations of reproductive function in young women with T1DM and their ...

Background: Aberrations in the timing of puberty may result in significant adverse health outcomes, including cancers, cardiovascular and neurological pathologies. Self-limited delayed puberty (DP) (i.e. constitutional delay of puberty) runs in families with either autosomal dominant or complex inheritance patterns in >70% of families, indicating a strong genetic basis of the trait. However, only a few genes have been identified underlying DP so far....

Background: Congenital Hyperinsulinism (CHI) is the commonest cause of refractory hypoglycaemia in infants.Objective and hypotheses: CHI is a rare disorder with varied clinical manifestations, genotype often with poor outcome. This study describes the clinical profile, molecular characterisation, response to therapy and short term outcome in children with CHI presenting to Paediatric Endocrinology Division, B.J. Wadia Hospital for Children, Mumbai.<p...

Background: Most reports on gonadotoxicity associated with chemotherapy of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) comes from studies in adults, and they are mainly focused on the sensitivity of testicular germ cells. Little attention has been placed on Sertoli cells in prepubertal patients, even though Sertoli cell function is essential for adult spermatogenesis.Objective: To evaluate Sertoli cell function in prepubertal boys who receive chemotherapy for ALL...

Background: Obesity in childhood and adolescence represents a major health problem of our century and accounts for a significant increase in morbidity and mortality in adulthood. In Greece, more than 35% of children and adolescents are currently overweight or obese.Objective and hypotheses: To develop a National e-Health System for General Pediatricians and General Practitioners for the prevention and management of overweight and obesity. Specific aims i...

Background: Hyperinsulinism/hyperammonaemia (HI/HA) syndrome is associated with postprandial hypoglycaemia and mild hyperammonemia. There is increased insulin release following protein ingestion, which is amenable to diaxozide therapy. While developmental delay and normoglycaemic seizures can also occur, hepatomegaly has not been reported. We report a child with HI/HA and hepatomegaly, mild learning difficulty and obesity, who was initially mistaken to have glycogen storage di...

Background: Juvenile Pagets disease (JPD), an ultra-rare, debilitating bone disease stemming from unopposed RANKL action due to loss of functional osteoprotegerin (OPG) is caused by recessive mutations in TNFRSF11B. A genotype-phenotype correlation spanning from mild to very severe forms is described.Objective and hypotheses: To describe the complexity of the human phenotype of OPG deficiency in more detail and to investigate heterozygous mutation carrie...

Background: In humans, glucocorticoids (GCs) regulate a broad spectrum of physiologic functions, exerting both genomic and nongenomic actions through their ubiquitously expressed glucocorticoid receptor (hGR). The rapid nongenomic actions of GCs are likely to be mediated by membrane hGRs that transduce the glucocorticoid signal via activation of kinases. S-palmitoylation plays an important role in plasma membrane localization and occurs through a highly conserved nine amino ac...

Background: The noncoding RNA growth-arrest-specific transcript 5 (Gas5) is abundant in cells whose growth has been arrested owing to lack of nutrients or growth factors. Gas5 is a riborepressor of the glucocorticoid receptor, influencing cell survival and metabolic activities during starvation by inhibiting the latter’s transcriptional activity.Aim: To determine the expression levels of Gas5 in blood samples of obese, overweight and lean children a...