ESPE Abstracts

Background: GH has several effects on lipid and glucose homeostasis. In adults GH deficiency (GHD) has been associated to increased mortality for cardiovascular disease (CVD). In childhood few studies have investigated the effect of GHD and recombinant human GH (rhGH) therapy on metabolic parameters that may increase the risk of CVD.Objective and hypotheses: To assess changes of lipid profile, insulin-resistance indexes, and CVD risk in children and adol...

Background: Placenta tissue hold great promise as a source of cells for regenerative medicine due to its plasticity and easy availability. Amniotic Mesenchymal Stem Cells (AMSC) represent a potentially unlimited source of functional pancreatic endocrine lineage cells, used to replenish the islet mass in diabetic patients.Objective and hypotheses: The aim of our study is to culture AMSC in serum-free condition preserving their phenotypic traits. These cul...

Background: Decreased serum adiponectin levels are associated with obesity and peripheral insulin resistance (IR). PCOS is characterized by hyperandrogenism and chronic anovulation and frequently is associated to IR. Some defects of Insulin Receptor have been proposed as mechanisms to explain ovarian hyperandrogenism in PCOS.Objectives: To explore adiponectin levels in adolescents with PCOS and to evaluate if adiponectin would identify potential patients...

Background: Antithyroid drugs (ATD) are recommended as the initial treatment in Graves disease in childhood and adolescence. Identification of predictive factors might lead to improve patient management by facilitating the identification of patients requiring long-term ATD or early alternative therapy.Objective and hypotheses: To assess the prevalence of signs and symptoms of hyperthyroidism in childhood and adolescence, to evaluate the rates of adverse ...

Introduction: Hyperthyroidism (HT) is a condition characterized by inappropriately high thyroid hormone (TH) activity at receptor level, due to high synthesis and secretion of TH by thyroid gland. Antithyroid drugs as methimazole (MMI) are used as the first-line therapy in children. However, the optimal treatment duration and the predictive remission factors are still controversial.Objective: To investigate outcome of MM...

Background and Aims: Retesting subjects treated with GH throughout childhood at attainment of final height is of importance to identify those having pGHD and needing replacement treatment during transition years and adulthood, and to avoid overtreatment of GH sufficient subjects. This study aimed at evaluating the clinical and biochemical features of patients diagnosed of isolated idiopathic (II) GHD in childhood at retesting to verify the prevalence of perman...

MOPD is known to be caused by homozygous loss-of-function mutations in a specific gene, PCNT. Both intra- and interfamilial clinical variability (even for the same variant) have been frequently observed, which makes it difficult to infer a genotype–phenotype correlation. Pericentrin (PCTN) is a structural protein expressed in the centrosome that plays a fundamental role in anchoring protein complexes, regulating mitotic cycle and thus cell proliferation. High levels of m...

Background: Newborn (NB) screening programs show a wide variation in congenital hypothyroidism (CH) incidence along the years.Objective and hypotheses: To describe CH incidence, etiology, associated malformations and Down Syndrome (DS) in children detected by our NB Screening Program. To search differences between permanent CH (PCH) and transient forms (TCH).Method: We analyzed NB with positive screening results referred between A...

Background: MicroRNAs (miRNA) are small non coding RNA molecules, key regulators of metabolic pathways. Obesity is characterised by many metabolic changes. NAFLD is seen as a complication of obesity. FOXO-1, key regulator in insulin signalling, has been shown to be implicated in NAFLD. We previously identified miRNAs regulators of the FOXO-1 gene.Objective and hypotheses: To assess in serum whether the regulation of miR-146a and miR-486-5p, FOXO1 gene re...

Background: In children, papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is generally sporadic and may, less frequently, be part of an undiagnosed hereditary tumor predisposition syndrome (HTPS). Somatic molecular testing is useful to understand tumor etiology and behavior, predict prognosis, and possibly guide development of novel treatment strategies. RET/PTC fusions were found to be associated with an increased risk of invasive disease. The aims of our study were to analyze...