ESPE Abstracts

Background: Neonatal Graves’ disease (NGD) occurs in 1–2% pregnancies with maternal Graves’ disease. Thyroid auto-antibodies can persist in the maternal circulation even 10 years after thyroidectomy and can lead to NGD in the absence of maternal thyrotoxicosis. Both maternal stimulating autoantibodies and maternal thyroxine can cross the placenta, and have been implicated in neonatal craniosynostosis.Objective and hypotheses: We report a c...

Central hypothyroidism (CeH) can be defined as a lower than desirable secretion of thyroid hormone by a normal thyroid gland resulting from (quantitative or qualitative) insufficient TSH secretion. Causes are congenital and acquired functional or anatomic defects of the hypothalamus, pituitary gland or both. CeH can be difficult to diagnose, especially in children without a history of brain defects or brain damaging treatment (e.g. irradiation), and when plasma FT4 concentrati...

Background: Several lines of evidence suggest that the adult pituitary contains a population of tissue-specific stem cells capable of differentiating into hormone-producing cells. Previously, we have shown that Sox2+ve cells are able to self-renew and differentiate in vitro, suggesting that this population of undifferentiated cells may contain stem cells in vivo. When targeted with oncogenic mutations adult stem cells can become cancer stem cells, able to self-renew and give r...

Osteoclasts are bone-resorbing cells important in normal growth plate development and bone remodeling. The development of osteoclasts is potently driven by mononuclear RANK and osteogenic cell RANKL interaction. Denosumab is a monoclonal antibody drug that targets RANKL and inhibits osteoclastogenesis. It is a potent and effective treatment for pathologic processes that involve bone resorption, such as osteoporosis and bone metastases, conditions for which it is approved. Deno...

Background: Effective clinical care and research in disorders of sex development (DSD), as well as assessment of long-term outcome of these rare conditions, requires multicentre collaboration across national boundaries and across multiple clinical and research disciplines. This registry is currently funded by the UK MRC as the International DSD Registry (www.i-dsd.org) which adheres to the highest standards of data governance and security. Fr...

Context: Congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI) has two main histological types – diffuse and focal. Diffuse CHI is due to recessive or dominant mutations in ABCC8/KCNJ11. Focal disease is due to somatic maternal allele loss of 11p15 in pancreatic β-cells along with paternally inherited germline ABCC8/KCNJ11 mutation. Fluorine-18 L-3, 4-dihydroxyphenylalanine positron emission tomography computerized tomography (18F DOPA–PET...

Background: Apparent mineralocorticoid excess (AME) is a rare congenital autosomal recessive disorder resulting from mutations in the HSD11B2 gene, which encodes the kidney isozyme of 11-β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 2, inactivating circulating cortisol to the less-active metabolite cortisone. Less than 100 cases of AME have been reported in the literature so far. Affected individuals have elevated renal concentrations of cortisol, which can cross-react and activate...

Background: Raising a child diagnosed with type 1 diabetes can have a profound impact on parents. Having to combine the demands of the disease and treatment with every day parenting tasks can be overwhelming. Easy accessible communication with healthcare professionals was found to support parents in adequately coping with the disease and the disease self-management in everyday life, as well as peer support and tailored disease information. The Internet is regarded to be a suit...

Background: Secondary pseudohypoaldosteronism (PHA) type 1 is an uncommon salt losing condition of infancy caused by transient resistance of the mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) of the renal tubule to aldosterone. This can be secondary to urinary tract infection (UTI), urinary tract malformation (UTM) or obstructive uropathy. Ninety percent of reported cases present before 3 months and nearly all are under 7 months of age.Objective and hypotheses: The co...

Background: 17β-Hydroxysteroid dehyrogenase type 3 (17βHSD-3) deficiency is an autosomal recessive form of 46,XY disorder of sex development (DSD). 17βHSD-3 is present almost exclusively in the testes and converts androstenedione to testosterone. The diagnosis can be easily missed in early childhood as the clinical presentation may be subtle. The most frequent presentation of 17βHSD-3 deficiency is a 46,XY individual with female external genitalia, labial f...