ESPE Abstracts

We describe a 5 years-old patient referred to our centre for dysmorphic features and delayed psychomotor development. Negative family history, second child, full-term birth, eutocic delivery, regular growth parameters at birth and neonatal adaptation. Autonomous walking at 20 months with clumsiness; first words at 2 years with dysarthria and dysphagia. Brain MRI and array-CGH were normal. At the neurological examination: perioral hypotonia, sialorrhea, praxic difficulties. At ...

Schaaf-Yang syndrome (SYS) is a genetic disorder caused by truncating pathogenic variants in the paternal allele of the maternally imprinted, paternally expressed gene MAGEL2, located in the Prader-Willi critical region 15q11-15q13. SYS is a neurodevelopmental disorder that has clinical overlap with Prader-Willi Syndrome in the initial stages of life, being the intellectual disability, developmental delay, autism spectrum disorder, neonatal hypotonia, infantile feeding problem...

Introduction: Primary adrenal insufficiency (PAI) is a potentially life-threatening condition that requires appropriate diagnosis and treatment. The most common cause of PAI is congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), but other well-established aetiologies include metabolic and autoimmune disorders, and physical damage. Mutations in more than 30 genes have now been associated with PAI, with considerable biochemical and phenotypic overlap. It is therefore importan...

Background: Among children with idiopathic short stature, Italian data reported a prevalence of short stature homeobox-containing gene (SHOX) deficiency disorders (SHOX-D) near to 1/1.000-2.000 (1.1-15%) with a wide phenotypic spectrum. Current guidelines support recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) therapy in SHOX-D children, but long-term data are still lacking. This national survey aims to evaluate long-term efficacy and safety of rhGH therapy in Italian...

Background: Caregivers of patients with Bardet Biedl syndrome (BBS) face substantial burden from highly prevalent features of the disease, namely hyperphagia, or uncontrollable hunger, and obesity. However, the burden experienced by caregivers of individuals with BBS is not well characterized.Methods: A multicountry cross-sectional survey of caregivers of individuals with BBS was conducted to quantify the burden experien...

Background: Hyperphagia, or pathologic insatiable hunger, and early-onset obesity are prevalent clinical features of Bardet-Biedl syndrome (BBS), a rare genetic disorder. While hyperphagia and obesity have broad impacts on individuals with BBS and their caregivers, the extent of this burden is not well characterized.Methods: This multicountry cross-sectional survey of caregivers of individuals with BBS was conducted to q...

Introduction: Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is characterized by insulin-producing pancreatic β-cells loss. Apo1/Fas, a glycosylated surface protein, is implicated in maintaining homeostasis of the immune system. Cytokeratin-18 (cCK-18) is a predictive marker of liver disorders in T2DM. Intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) is considered a candidate gene for susceptibility to diabetes mellitus. Aim: To investigate the possible role of Apo1/Fas, cCK-...

ERF protein is a major binding target of ERK1/2 kinases, key effectors of the RAS–MEK–ERK signaling cascade. ERF has a role as a negative transcriptional regulator of RAS/MAPK mitogenic pathway (1) and, in theory, a loss-of-function mutation (LOF) in ERF could cause a Rasopathy phenotype. To date, LOF variants of ERF have been reported in 45 individuals with craniosynostosis but without a Noonan-like phenotype. There is only one case report describing a patient wit...

Introduction: Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS), a common syndromic form of childhood obesity, is characterized by failure-to-thrive during infancy followed by progressive hyperphagia and obesity in childhood. The pathogenesis of hyperphagia and weight-gain in PWS is poorly understood and management strategies have had variable and limited success. Several studies support an etiological contribution of dysbiotic gut microbiota in the metabolic derangements of obesit...

Cystic fibrosis related diabetes (CFRD) is one of the main complications of cystic fibrosis (CF), following inflammatory-degenerative damage of the pancreas. Aim of our study was to evaluate the effects of replacement insulin therapy in patients with cystic fibrosis complicated by overt diabetes or pre-diabetes on BMI and respiratory function. We selected a sample of 17 insulin treated patients (Group T) and a sample of 17 controls with CF but normal glucose metabolism (Group ...