ESPE Abstracts

Background: Alterations in the timing or expression level of players involved in sex determination and differentiation can cause disorders of sex development, gonadal dysgenesis and germ cell neoplasms later in life. The mitosis–meiosis switch is one of the first manifestations of female sex differentiation and we hypothesise that a conflict between meiosis-inhibiting (male pathway) and meiosis-inducing signals (female pathway) is one of the possible mechanisms for disrup...

Background: The adrenal glands and gonads develop from an area of intermediate mesoderm between 6 and 10 weeks post conception (wpc) in humans. Elucidating the genomic components and pathways in these processes could reveal novel aspects of human developmental biology and new factors implicated in adrenal insufficiency and DSD.Objective and hypotheses: To develop a unique genomic atlas of adrenal and gonad development during critical stages of human embr...

Background: Severe-persistent hypoglycaemia (SPH) in congenital hyperinsulinism (HI) can cause blindness and brain damage. First line treatment with diazoxide treatment can cause significant side effects, including fluid retention. Off-label use of i.v. reconstituted glucagon is also used but little safety and efficacy data have been reported.Objective and hypotheses: To evaluate the use of i.v. glucagon infusion for management of SPH in HI.<p class=...

Background: Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with the response to GH therapy have previously been identified in growth hormone deficient (GHD) children in the PREDICT long-term follow-up (LTFU) study (NCT00699855).Objective and hypotheses: To assess the effect of GHD severity on the predictive value of genetic markers of growth response.Method: We used pre-pubertal GHD children (peak GH <10 μg/l) from the ...

Background: Childhood haematopoietic stem cell transplantation and total body irradiation (HSCT/TBI) survivors have multiple risk factors for reduced bone mineral density (BMD) and poor growth. Reduced z-scores from dual energy x-Ray absorptiometry (DEXA) have been reported, but are unreliable in patients with short stature/abnormal body composition.Objective: To investigate the influence of HSCT/TBI on size-corrected BMD in childhood leukaemia ...

Background: Prediction of response to recombinant GH (r-GH) is currently based on regression modelling. This approach generates a prediction equation which can be applied to data from an individual child. However this method can underestimate the effect of inter-dependent variables. Random forest classification (RFC) is an alternative prediction method based on decision trees that is not sensitive to the relationships between variables.Objective and hypo...

Background: The Easypod Connect Observational Study (ECOS) observational study follows children with GHD, SGA and Turner syndrome receiving r-hGH therapy for up to 5 years, with interim analyses each year. The easypod electromechanical auto-injector device enables accurate, real-world digital records of patients’ adherence to rhGH to be collected for evaluation.Objective and hypotheses: The primary objective of ECOS is to evaluate the level of adher...

Introduction: Obesity has been on the rise in children, adolescents and young adults during the Corona virus disesase-2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. Obesity is known as the main risk factor for a number of diseases including type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and more than 90 percent of T2DM patients are overweight or obese. Along with the rise in obesity during the COVID-19 pandemic, we investigated the impact of COVD-19 pandemic on type 2 diabetes in children and ad...

Objectives: No validated achondroplasia (ACH)-specific patient reported outcome (PRO) or clinician-reported outcome (ClinRO) measures are available. A detailed review of generic PRO and ClinRO measures was performed to select relevant tools for further evaluation in a qualitative study.Methods: Published literature describing medical challenges and impacts among children with ACH was reviewed to identify important concep...

Introduction: The external masculinisation score (EMS) has been utilised as an objective numerical description of the external genitalia in undermasculinised patients with DSD in several studies. However, data on longitudinal change in EMS in the routine clinical setting are lacking.Objectives: To determine the longitudinal change in EMS and its determinants in a cohort of boys with XY DSD in one specialist centre.<p...