ESPE Abstracts

Background:Short stature may be due to various pathological conditions or may be idiopathic. SHOX (Short Stature Homeobox on X chromosome) gene is involved in the regulation of skeletal growth and is a main cause of short stature on monogenic basis. The frequency of this condition in children with idiopathic short stature (ISS) was reported to range from 2 to 17%. The phenotypic spectrum is heterogeneous, varying from Léri-Weill dyschondrosteosis (LWD) ...

Introduction: Type 5 monogenic diabetes is an autosomal dominant disease due to a mutation in HNF1beta gene. This gene is expressed predominantly in kidney and pancreas, thus clinical manifestations are characterised by renal abnormalities and diabetes.Objectives: To review the clinical characteristics of patients who were diagnosed with type 5 monogenic diabetes in the Pediatric Endocrinology Unit of a tertiary referral hospital.<p class="a...

Hyperinsulinism is a common cause of severe and persistent hypoglycaemia during the neonatal period. Eleven genes have been identified that lead to unregulated insulin secretion and hyperinsulinemic hypoglycaemia (HH). Inactivating mutations in UCP2 gene have been described in a very small number of patients with HH. UCP2 protein is an inner mitochondrial carrier protein and its loss of function causes enhanced glucose oxidation and increased intracellular ATP synthes...

Hyperinsulinemic hypoglycaemia (HH) is a common cause of severe and persistent hypoglycaemia during the neonatal period. Risk factors for neonatal transient hyperinsulinism are small-for-gestational age (SGA), perinatal asphyxia and maternal diabetes mellitus. This state of hyperinsulinism in SGA newborns could persist from weeks to years, resulting in an important comorbidity; its pathogenesis remains unknown.Objective: To describe the clinical-genetic ...

Introduction: Idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) is a rare entity in childhood. It is characterized by signs and symptoms of increased intracranial pressure with normal neurological examination (except for possible paresis of the sixth cranial nerve), cerebrospinal fluid study and neuroimaging. The association between HII and treatment with growth hormone (GH) was first described in 1993 by the Food and Drug Administration and it has later been demonstrated. Incidence ...

The Ovotesticular Disorder of Sexual Development (OT DSD) is a rare condition characterized by histologic demonstration of both ovarian and testicular tissue in the same individual. Descriptions in literature usually have small samples and do not include patient evolution data. The aim of this study is to describe clinical, biochemical and histological findings, as well as long-term outcomes (including onset and progression of puberty) in patients with OT DSD, accompanied betw...

Background: The aim of therapy in patients with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is to use glucocorticoid doses as low as possible to achieve adrenal suppression. Both chronically increased androgen secretion and increased glucocorticoid exposure may adversely affect adult height and in some patients this therapeutic balance is difficult to achieve. In these particular cases aromatase inhibitors (AI) could be indicated with de aim to reduce glucocorticoid doses avoiding th...

Background: Hypocalcemia is a common metabolic disorder in the neonatal period and may involve life-threatening situations. The aim is to analyze the main causes of hypocalcemia and its management.Objective and hypotheses: The aim is to analyze the main causes of hypocalcemia and its management.Method: Retrospective descriptive study by reviewing reports of 75 patients diagnosed of neonatal hypocalcemia (total Ca <7.6 mg/dl and...

Introduction: Pilocytic astrocytoma is the most common type of CNS astrocytoma in children. Clinical manifestations depend on its location and size and initial symptoms are usually related to neurological deficits or signs and symptoms of intracranial hypertension. Involvement of the hypothalamic area, pituitary infundibulum and leptomeningeal spread are exceptional. The case of a patient with central precocious puberty in whom the initial neuroimaging study oriented the diagn...

Background: Aortic dilation (AD) occurs in Turner syndrome (TS) increasing the risk of aortic dissection at all ages. There are no current guidelines on what specific aortic diameter measurement should provoke concern in pediatric TS. Because of their small stature, an aortic size index (ASI) has been proposed to normalize the ascending aorta (AA) to body size in young adults’ with TS. However, a more reliable index has been also proposed: the ratio of vascular diameter t...