ESPE Abstracts

Background: Over the last decade, and in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a substantial increase in the use of digital health tools to track growth and manage growth disorders in children. Paediatric endocrinologists acknowledge the usefulness of these tools in clinical decision making but lack confidence and skills to use them. Atique et al. designed a Massive Open Online Learning Course (MOOC) to increase digital health literacy, and identified...

Background: Glucokinase (GCK) acts as the glucose sensor of β-islet cells, regulating insulin secretion in response to changing glucose concentrations. Homozygous GCK mutations are a rare cause of permanent neonatal diabetes. Heterozygous mutations lead to GCK MODY, causing mild hyperglycaemia, not usually requiring treatment.Case: The index case was born to consanguineous parents at 36+2 weeks gestation, weighing 1610 g (0.4th centile). Hy...

Background: Trisomy 21 is associated with an increased susceptibility to respiratory infections.Objective and hypotheses: For a more detailed characterization of the adaptive immune response, we analyzed the cellular and humoral immunity to specific pathogens in blood samples of 40 children with Down’s syndrome in comparison to 51 age-matched controls.Method: We quantitatively analyzed lymphocyte subpopulations using flow cyto...

Introduction: Recombinant growth hormone (GH) is an effective treatment for short children who are born small for gestational age (SGA). Short children born SGA who fail to demonstrate catch-up growth by 2-4 years of age are candidates for GH treatment initiated to achieve catch-up growth to a normal height in early childhood, maintain a normal height gain throughout childhood, and achieve an adult height within the normal target range. However, some children ...

Objectives: To assess the long-term effect of growth hormone (GH) therapy in children with Turner Syndrome (TS)Patients and methods: We evaluated retrospectively the anthropometric data of 10 girls with TS short children (height SDS <-2) who were diagnosed and treated with GH (0.05 mg/kg/day) between January 2007 till 2018 in our tertiary care center. Before and during GH treatment, auxological and biochemical parameters including He...

Background: Paragnagliomas and pheochromocytomas are rare neuroendocrine tumors that originate from the paraganglionic cells of the autonomic nervous systems. These tumors may be extra or intra-adrenal in site. The use of antihypertensive medications is usually challenging in these patients. Long acting alpha and beta blockade can be quite useful preoperatively but challenging postoperatively. We present a case of familial paraganglioma that was successfully t...

Background: Ghrelin is a somatotropic and orexigenic protein secreted primarily from stomach.Objective and hypotheses: Since both GH secretion and nutrition, two fundamental contributors in growth promotion, are enhanced by ghrelin, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship of ghrelin hormone with growth retardation in 3- to 16-year-old children and adolescents and determine whether ghrelin levels are different between normal subjects and...

Background: In 2011, nationwide growth charts were introduced, replacing different regional references (ZLS, Prader 1989; Sempé 1979 and, for BMI only, Kromeyer 2001).Objective and hypotheses: The aim was to examine the influence of new growth charts (WHO 2010) on the prevalence of nutrition- and growth-related disorders compared the ‘old’ references.Method: 6007 anonymised weight and height datasets of children meas...

Background: We have previously shown that estradiol (E2) matrix patches for adults could be cut in smaller pieces to administer low doses for pubertal induction in girls with hypogonadism. With a slow increase of the patch size during a few years, serum E2 levels in normal girls undergoing puberty can be closely mimicked.Objective and hypotheses: To evaluate storage conditions once the patch has been cut.Metho...

Background: The Turner syndrome (TS) Working Group of the ESPE intends to start an international study comparing transdermal estradiol (E2) vs oral E2 in Europe in girls with TS. For this, stable and reliable products for children are needed, for use in different countries with different climates. It has previously been shown that E2 matrix patches for adults can be cut in smaller pieces to administer low doses for pubertal induction in girls. The Turner Working Group plan to ...