ESPE Abstracts

Background: One of the main concerns in patients with growth disorders is to achieve optimal adherence to growth hormone (GH) treatment. For this it is important to identify patients with low adherence to treatment and to evaluate actions to improve it.The Merck Patient Support Program (PSP) carried out educational actions aimed at patients with low adherence and their parents, to raise their awareness of the importance of good adherence...

Background: The WDR11 gene was recently involved in the pathogenesis of isolated hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (IHH). In 2010, Kim et al. (1) identified five different heterozygous missense WDR11 rare variants in six of 201 IHH patients (five normosmic IHH and one Kallmann syndrome), which were absent in more than 400 controls. Animal studies demonstrated that WDR11 interacts with EMX1, a homeodomain transcription factor involved in the development of olfacto...

Background: Cystic fibrosis is associated with abnormal lipid metabolism and this anormality is commonly characterized by low cholesterol and hypertriglyceridemia. The increasing in life expectancy of cystic fibrosis patients has enhancing the interest for prevent the risk factors for cardiovascular diseases like dyslipidemias.Objective and hypotheses: Determine whether concentrations of cholesterol and triacylglycerol are related to nutritional status a...

Background: Obesity during childhood has been demonstrated to exert profound and lasting effects on bone strength and fracture risk. Furthermore, obesity is characterized by chronic inflammation and oxidative stress, with an increase in the mediators of innate immunity. It has been found that skeletal homeostasis is influenced by immune cells. LIGHT (lymphotoxin-like inducible protein that competes with glycoprotein D for herpesvirus entry on T cells) is emerging among cytokin...

Background: OTX2 is expressed in the human brain and plays a key role in the eye development. OTX2 mutations are reported in patients with ano/microphtalmia, optic nerve or optic chiasm hypoplasia, ocular coloboma and retinal dystrophies, associated in some cases with brain or pituitary abnormalities.Objective and hypotheses: Most of OTX2 mutations are nonsense or frameshift, more rarely missense mutations occur.Method: We...

Background: A significant number of long-term complications are reported in childhood acute lymphatic leukemia (ALL) survivors, and among them metabolic syndrome (MetS).Objective and hypotheses: To evaluate the prevalence of features of MetS. In addition, we evaluated the presence of steatohepatitis which is described in association with MetS in otherwise healthy subjects.Method: We assessed waist circumference, triglycerides level...

Background: Hypopituitarism is characterized by deficiency of one or more anterior pituitary hormones. POU1F1 mutations are the second most frequent known cause of combined pituitary hormone deficiency (CPHD). Patients are typically deficient in GH, TSH, and prolactin, although two unrelated cases were reported with isolated GH deficiency (IGHD). To date, all POU1F1 mutations have been reported for the predominantly expressed alpha isoform, which is a transcr...

Background: The aetiology of congenital hypopituitarism (CH) is unknown in the majority of patients. In our cohort of 200 cases, it was possible to establish the genetic cause in only 13 patients (6.5%). Copy number variants (CNVs) have been implicated as the cause of genetic syndromes with previously unknown aetiology.Objective: To study the presence of CNVs and its relevance in patients with CH of unknown cause associated with complex phenotypes.<p...

Background: Growth hormone plays a primary role in stimulating postnatal growth by way of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) which is produced in the liver in response to GH. A deficiency of GH arrests maturation during childhood, and the stature of such subjects is generally much shorter than the average stature. However, some cases of GH deficiency attain normal stature as adults.Case presentation: A 20 years old man was referred for a further evaluat...

Background: The genetic background of idiopathic central precocious puberty (ICPP) is not well understood. The genetic activation of pubertal onset is thought to arise from the effect of multiple genes. Familial ICPP have been reported suggesting the existence of monogenic causes of ICPP. The neurokinin B (NKB) system has recently been implicated in the regulation of the human reproductive axis, but how NKB system exerts its effects on the central neuroendocrine control of hum...