ESPE Abstracts

Background: Pre- and postnatal growth retardation of unknown pathogenesis is a common clinical feature in patients with Williams-Beuren syndrome (WBS). However, growth hormone deficiency (GHD) has not been considered a major cause of growth retardation.Case reports: We report two female patients with confirmed WBS who had defective GH secretion in response to two provocative tests and low IGF-I level and their growth response to GH therapy for 9 years. T...

Background: Pathogenic IGFI gene mutations causing childhood growth failure are rare. Only 5 autosomal recessive mutations, one IGFI copy number variant and 2 heterozygous frameshift mutations are reported. Heterozygous missense IGFI mutations have not previously been described.Objectives: To identify and functionally characterise a novel missense IGFI variant in a patient with postnat...

Background: Subclinical hypothyroidism (SH) is defined as an elevated serum concentration of TSH when serum free thyroxine (fT4) concentration is within its reference range. Impaired myocardial contractility in overt hypothyroidism and left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction in adults with SH as well as beneficial effects of thyroid hormone replacement on systolic and diastolic functions in adults with SH has been documented, however the presence of similar alte...

Introduction: Ceratonia siliqua L. (CS) is from the legumes (Fabaceae) family, and different forms such as carob extract and flour are preferred by parents because it is a natural sweetener and a source of vegetable carbohydrates. CS is rich in polyphenols and flavonoids. When we questioned histories of the cases of early puberty and puberty variants who applied to our clinic, we noticed long-term and regular use in some cases. We planned to experimen...

Background and Aims: Children with Down's syndrome (DS) are at increased risk of autoimmune conditions including type 1 diabetes (T1D), coeliac and thyroid disease. We previously examined the clinical and immunogenetic characteristics of these conditions in children with DS. An earlier age-of-onset of diabetes was observed compared with children with T1D from the general population despite having decreased frequencies of the established genetic susceptibil...

Background: The recommended capillary TSH cut-off level for neonatal screening for congenital hypothyroidism (CH) in the UK is 10 mIU/l. However several of the regional screening laboratories have adopted lower cut-off limits in order to increase detection sensitivity. There is now pressure to standardise the UK screening programme with universal adoption of the recommended cut-off. Scotland has been using a cut-off of 8 mIU/l since the adoption of AutoDELFIA TSH screening met...

Background: It has already been documented that selenium treatment has beneficial effects in adult patients with autoimmune thyroiditis, especially in those with a higher titer of antibodies and increased inflammatory disease activity.Objective and hypotheses: To investigate whether daily supplementation of organic selenium at a high dose (200 μg in the form of L-selenomethionine) has any effect on the titer of thyroid autoantibodies.<p class="a...

Introduction: The prevalence of paediatric Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) is increasing, contributed by rising incidence of obesity worldwide. Paediatric T2DM is a progressive disease with increased risk of complications and morbidities. Despite recent research, many aspects such as its pathophysiology and optimal management remain unknown.Aim: To characterise the cohort of T2DM patients across 2 large tertiary paediatric diabet...

Background: Growth hormone insensitivity (GHI) encompasses normal/elevated growth hormone (GH), low IGF-I levels and growth restriction. Non-classical/mild-moderate GHI is an emerging entity which is poorly characterised, and, in many subjects, the underlying cause is unclear. Heterozygous dominant negative (DN) variants located in the intracellular/transmembrane domain of the GH receptor (GHR) cause a ‘non-classical’ GHI phenotype.<p class="abst...

Three patients from two unrelated families in Malta; one consanguineous (siblings: Patient 1, male and Patient 2, female) and one non-consanguineous (Patient 3, male), manifested hypogonadotropic hypogonadism with delayed puberty, intellectual disability, scoliosis, and ataxia with cerebellar hypoplasia on MRI. GnRH tests revealed low peak LH and FSH concentrations in the patients: Patient 1; LH 2.3 IU/L, FSH 4.4 IU/L (14.3y), Patient 2; LH 3.6 IU/L, FSH 6.4 IU/L (12.5y), Pati...