ESPE Abstracts

Background: Primary adrenal insufficiency (PAI) is a rare life-threatening disorder. Data on PAI in children are scanty, with the exception of Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) due to 21-hydroxylase deficiency (21OHD).Objective and hypotheses: Evaluate etiology of PAI in a large cohort of children and characterize clinical presentation in subjects with PAI not due to 21-OHD.Method: Children followed in eight tertiary centers wer...

Background: There is growing evidence of a correlation between fat and bone metabolism at both the clinical and molecular levels, although the systemic regulators have not been clearly identified. The receptor activator of nuclear factor kB ligand (RANKL) and its soluble decoy receptor, osteoprotegerin (OPG), are involved in bone resorption and vascular calcification. OPG levels has been related with insulin resistance in adult obese subjects.Objective a...

Background: Disproportional short stature (DSS) is the most frequent clinical presentation of skeletal dysplasias, which are a heterogeneous group of more than 450 disorders of bone. Skeletal survey is important to establish the diagnosis and to guide the genetic test, but has several limitations, especially in mild and atypical cases.Objective and hypotheses: To identify the genetic aetiology of DSS by exome sequencing.Method: Who...

Introduction: The majority of children with short stature are classified as ISS by the absence of findings that could elucidate the cause of their growth impairment. Several monogenic defects have already been identified in children with ISS, but the candidate gene approach is not feasible when there are no specific findings to guide a specific genetic test.Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic yield of a targeted gene p...

Introduction: Children with Prader-Willi syndrome present with short stature and obesity. However, very little is known about the role of this imprinted control region in the general population. This study aims to analyze the methylation status of the PWS imprinting control region (ICR) in placenta and its association with postnatal growth and obesity parameters in healthy children.Methodology: The methylation percentages of the PWS-ICR ...

Background: Infants with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) exhibit stunted growth. However, little is known about the role of genes expressed from the imprinted PWS domain in healthy infants. This study aimed to analyze the relative gene expression of the SNURF-SNRPN/UBE3A cluster in the imprinted PWS domain in umbilical cord tissue, and its potential association with prenatal and postnatal growth in apparently healthy infants.Methods:...

Objective: AMH causes fetal paramesonephric duct regression and is involved in testicular development and function. Sertoli cell AMH remains high during childhood until puberty. The appendix testis (AT), a remnant of the paramesonephric duct, contains both androgen and estrogen receptors. AT androgen receptors have been reported to play a role in embryonic testicular descent. The AT is commonly resected during orchiopexy and abdominal surgery as possible torsion in the future ...

Introduction: Thyroid hormones regulate body composition and metabolism, and are among the key drivers of body growth and maturation. In children, associations of cardio-metabolic measures with the circulating prohormone thyroxine (T4) have been extensively studied, but not with active triiodothyronine (T3). In apparently healthy children, we studied whether circulating free T3 (fT3) [and its ratio with free T4 (fT3/fT4)] associates with cardio-metabolic measu...

Background and Objectives: Offspring born to obese mothers are at an increased risk of chronic disease including type 2 diabetes (T2D), obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular disease (CVD), non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and chronic kidney disease (CKD). This metabolic programming is produced, in part, by epigenetic changes such us DNA methylation. We postulated that obesity exposure impacts the offspring's methylome and used an epigenomic approa...

Background: Carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) is a well-known marker of subclinical atherosclerosis. The distribution of adipose tissue among visceral fat reservoirs rather than the total adipose tissue mass is more likely to be related to subclinical atherosclerosis.Objective: The aim of this study was to determine whether epicardial and perirenal fat are more related to cIMT than body adiposity in prepubertal child...