ESPE Abstracts

22-month girl presented with 3 days of cough and fevers, 2 weeks of rhinorrhoea and frequent “clearing of throat” and 6 months of diaphoresis and growth spurt. On examination, she was flushed and diaphoretic with a large goitre. She had a low grade fever (T=37.9) with signs of cardiac compromise (bounding pulse sinus tachycardia [HR=200bpm]. She was hypertensive [BP=145/90mmHg] and tachypnoeic [RR=36/min] with respiratory distress and right-sided crepitations. She ha...

Background: Preterm newborns (PN) are at risk of developing congenital hypothyroidism (CH) with a high reported incidence (1:300 vs 1:2000 for at term newborns). The study's objective was to determine the TSH percentiles at neonatal screening (NS) in PN and to analyze the incidence of permanent and transient CH in this population.Materials and Methods: PN born in the Piedmont Region of Italy in the period 2019-2021 ...

Background: Measurement of salivary glucocorticoids is an accepted method for testing adrenal function and is gaining popularity as it offers a non-invasive collection technique, enabling sampling in the community or home environment, allowing tailored capture of steroid circadian rhythm and improved patient experience. However, there is little data on stability during home collection and sampling methods in young children. Current salivary collection techniqu...

Background: The Short Synacthen Test (SST) is the most popular test of adrenal insufficiency (AI) worldwide. The current SST protocol at Sheffield Children’s Hospital (SCH), UK, recommends measurement of serum cortisol at baseline, then 30- and 60-minutes post stimulation, with a peak cortisol of >429nmol/l constituting a pass. Our practice has evolved to consider near-pass results as “borderline” and patients may be treated with stress do...

Introduction: Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) has an incidence of 1:14 000 to 1:18 000 worldwide. It is caused by autosomal recessive gene mutations. Neonates typically present with virilization at birth, or in shock, ‘salt-losing crisis’, around days 10–14 of life. Some children present later with simple virilizing CAH, often with milder compound heterozygous mutations. Reactive thrombocytosis is a rare manifestation in CAH. Gasparini <...

Hypothyroidism is the most common thyroid disorder in children. It usually presents with nonspecific symptoms, that can be mild and occur slowly over time, compromising a timely diagnosis, with possible effects on pituitary gland, multiple organs and growth. In case of long-standing unrecognized hypothyroidism, myxedema or myxedema coma can occur, rare but severe conditions. This case report describes an adolescent presenting with extensive trunk and neck swelling. After exclu...

Purpose: Patients with growth hormone deficiency (GHD) show low fitness levels before GH treatment is started. Muscular strength, flexibility and postural stability are related to health and quality of life. Since it is widely recognized that physical activity increases GH secretion and GH could ameliorate fitness, if a high adherence to treatment is documented (1), the purpose of this study is to investigate any difference on posturographic parameters and mus...

Purpose: Needs in terms of quality of life (QoL), consisting of physical, emotional and social domains, represent a hot spot in idiopathic short stature (ISS). Between ISS, it is estimated that 12% can have SHOX deficiency. Furthermore, SHOX deficiency can affect posture and GH treatment ameliorate their QoL. Although scientific research has investigated many fields of the physical domain, very few studies highlighted how this pathological condition may af...

Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is the most common thyroid tumor in childhood and adolescence. Most of these patients are referred with locally advanced and/or distant disease at the moment of diagnosis. Whenever is possible, these patients should be offered a total thyroidectomy and radioiodine remnant ablation. However, this approach is not always possible to perform, becoming these tumors as unresectable. These critical cases could benefit from the neoadjuvant treatment with...

Background: Turner syndrome (TS) affects about one in 2500 liveborn females. It results from the loss of all or part of X-chromosome and has a variable phenotype. The classical form is characterised by short stature, skeletal abnormalities, lymphedema, renal and cardiac anomalies, webbed neck, peculiar neurocognitive profile and gonadal dysgenesis. While loss of up to 2/3 of the X chromosome short arm is compatible with normal fertility, chromosome deletions involving Xq are o...