ESPE Abstracts

Purpose: Leptin plays a key role in the regulation of body weight and other endocrine systems. Recently, impairment of leptin gene transcription due to genetic variations in a long-noncoding RNA, also referred as lncOb, has been described in mice. In humans, a correspondent polymorphism (rs10487505) has been associated with relatively low plasmatic leptin levels compared to obesity severity and with early obesity onset.Objectives...

Introduction: The extracellular calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR) enables the parathyroid glands and other CaSR-expressing cells involved in calcium homeostasis to sense alterations in calcium serum concentrations. Mutations in the CASR gene may produce gain or loss in its activity. Activating mutations cause a hypocalcaemic syndrome of varying severity, as autosomal-dominant hypocalcaemia or Bartter’s syndrome.Case report: We describe a 6 months infa...

Background: Phthalate exposure results in endocrine disruption by inhibiting steroidogenesis, inducing focal dysgenesis and disrupting germ cell development in the rat fetal testis. Whilst phthalate exposure does not reduce testosterone production by the human fetal testis, its effects on germ cells and induction of dysgenetic areas in the developing human testis are less well described.Objective and Hypotheses: To determine the effects of phthalate expo...

Background: In North-Eastern Italy, a newborn screening for congenital adrenal hyperlpasia (CAH) has been taking place since 2001 to diagnose the classical form of 21-hydroxylase deficiency (21-OHD). Thanks to the screening program based on 17-OHP levels in dried blood spots, early diagnosis of CAH is possible, allowing appropriate precocious treatment and reducing mortality rates. Unfortunately, a high false positive rate, especially in preterm, low-birth-wei...

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...

Background: Elastargene 3C (E3C) is a cream specifically designed to improve lipoatrophy in patients with diabetes. It is made by many ingredients, among whom are elastin, arnica, collagen, caffeine, and L-carnitine.Objective and hypotheses: We started a 6-month, double-blind, randomized trial to test the efficacy of E3C in children with type 1 diabetes (T1D) using insulin pump (CSII), in whom infusion set usually left little withe scars.<...

Background: Short stature is defined as a height more than two standard deviations below the mean for age and sex. Pathologic causes of short stature include growth hormone deficiency, hypothyroidism, celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease or other chronic diseases, hormonal abnormalities, and genetic disorders, such as Turner syndrome. Moreover, among other variants of short stature, scholarship also described familial short stature, constitutional delay ...

Background: Thyrotoxic periodic paralysis (TPP) is a rare clinical manifestation of hyperthyroidism, commonly seen in Asian males. Patients often present with sudden onset muscle weakness associated with severe hypokalemia.Case presentation: A 16-year-old Filipino male presented with acute onset bilateral lower extremities weakness. He woke up at night but was unable to move his legs. He denied any recent viral infections, ingestion of canned food or his...

Background: Silver Russell syndrome (SRS) is an imprinting defect disease.Objective: To study clinical characteristics and imprinting defects in Chinese children with SRS.Methods: Forty-nine SRS cases were studied retrospectively. Out of these 49 cases, 36 were available to be detected chromosome 11p15 imprinting defects and 21 cases were detected uniparental disomy of maternal chromosome 7 (UPD(7) mat).Resul...