ESPE Abstracts

Background: Childhood obesity is associated with advanced bone age (BA), leading to an altered growth pattern. Previous results of studies suggest that androgens, estrogens, sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) and insulin are responsible for this phenomenon, but results are contradictory and might be biased by confounders.Objective and hypotheses: To investigate the independent effects of estrogens, androgens, SHBG and insulin parameters on BA advancemen...

Catch-up growth (CUG) is characterized by a period of supranormal height velocity following a transient period of growth inhibition. The two classical hypotheses on the mechanism are the neuro-endocrine hypothesis (a central mechanism that would recognize the degree of mismatch between actual size and target size) and the growth plate hypothesis (local regulation of growth according to a preset cellular program of senescence, characterized by decreasing growth proliferation ra...

Background: Measurement of testicular volume is important when conditions associated with a delay or advance in the onset of puberty, or micro- and macroorchidism, are suspected. Measured testicular volumes must be compared with reference data, preferably expressed in S.D. curves using the LMS method, as is routinely done for many auxological measurements in pediatrics. The current study therefore aimed to construct LMS-smoothed age-reference charts for testicul...

Introduction: Patients carrying homozygous IGF1 loss-of-function mutations are extremely rare and show severe pre- and postnatal growth failure, microcephaly, developmental delay, retrognathia and sensorineural deafness. Heterozygous variants in IGF1 appear to be more common in short stature, but only few cases have been reported in detail. Therefore, clinical features and growth response to recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) therapy are...

Introduction: Ghrelin binds to its receptor GHSR1A, encoded by GHSR, on somatotrophs of the pituitary. Growth hormone (GH) secretion is enhanced by ghrelin binding as well as the receptor’s constitutive activity. Results from in vitro experiments, knock-out mice, and GWAS suggest that heterozygous loss-of-function of GHSR may be associated with short stature, but observations in case studies are equivocal. We aimed to better ch...

Introduction: Among children with short stature, some show persistent IGF-I levels <-2.0 SDS despite a normal growth hormone (GH) response in a stimulation test. This may be caused by conditions that could benefit from recombinant human GH (rhGH) therapy (e.g. GH neurosecretory dysfunction, bioinactive GH, partial GH insensitivity). Therefore, the IGF-I generation test (IGFIGT) was implemented in 2006 using a national, standardized protocol. Children with a...

The easypod™ electromechanical injection in combination with the easypod Connect platform electronically records and transmits, in real time, accurate, objective records of the date, time and dose injected for patients receiving Growth Hormone (GH) for growth disorders, limiting the risk of misreporting and allowing physicians to accurately monitor patient behavior.The aim was to study individual patterns of adherence from start treatment up to 24 m...

Background: ALS deficiency is characterized by mild short stature, delayed puberty, low serum IGF1, low serum IGFBP3 and undetectable serum ALS levels.Case: A 11.3 years old boy presented with short stature. He was born at term to consanguineous parents and the birth weight was unknown. On physical examination, his height and weight were 130.5 cm (−2.33 SDS) and 25.2 kg (−2.36 SDS) and he was prepubertal. The routine laboratory tests were nor...

Background: STAT5B deficiency is characterized by severe postnatal growth failure, low IGF1, elevated levels of GH and prolactin, and immunodeficiency. To date, only ten patients with seven different mutations have been described.Objective and hypotheses: Describe clinical characteristics of a novel homozygous frameshift mutation in STAT5B.Results: A 17-year-old female was referred for proportionate short stature and prima...

Background: IGSF1 deficiency has been recently found to be a novel cause of x-linked central hypothyroidism, macroorchidism and delayed puberty.Case presentation: We present a family, in which the proband was diagnosed with congenital central hypothyroidism by neonatal screening and treated accordingly. Further pituitary examination revealed an unmeasurable prolactin level, normal IGF1, normal cortisol and no abnormalities of the pituitary on MRI. The pa...