ESPE Abstracts

Introduction: Adrenocortical tumors are very rare in children, with a prevalence of just 0.3 cases/million/year. Autonomic hormone production by adrenal cortical tumors may cause peripheral precocious puberty.Case report: A 4-year-old boy was presented by his parents because of pubertal behavior with aggressive features and a significant increase in the size of the penis. The parents also noticed a strong growth spurt and sweat odor. The boy had a good g...

Aim and background: Growth hormone (GH) treatment of short children born SGA and its effects on growth varies greatly between treated individuals. In the present study we tested the performance of a preexisting growth prediction model (Ranke et al.; JCE&M 2003 pp. 125–131) to estimate 1st-year height velocity (HV) in a german subcohort of prepubertal children born SGA treated with GH (Omnitrope).Methods: 190 treatment-naïve prepu...

Background: Small for gestational age (SGA), defined as ≤−2.0 SDS birth length or weight, is a condition seen in up to 3% of all newborn. Most SGA children catch up height in postnatal life. In a significant number (~10%), however, height remains below the third centile. Recombinant GH therapy is indicated when growth failure continues to 4 years of age. The pathophysiological basis of SGA is complex: monogenic disorders and/or fetal programming by environmental fa...

Introduction: Standard dose for GH deficient children is 0.025 mg/kg per day given subcutaneously once daily. Inborn panhypopituitarism is a special subset of GH deficiency. Its management is difficult because several hormones need to be replaced. We present three patients with perinatal onset panhypopituitarism.Case reports: Case 1 is a 7-year-old boy who had hypoglycaemic seizure with reanimation due to circulatory arrest shortly after birth. Panhypopi...

Background: Type 1 diabetes may have an influence on concentration, attention and behaviour. These effects are relevant, as they may affect school performance and later career options for paediatric diabetes patients.Objective and hypotheses: This study examined attention, concentration and behavioural difficulties in diabetic children aged 5–13 years and their association with hypoglycaemic episodes and HbA1c.Method: 48 child...

Introduction: Acromegaly is a rare disorder, developed by overproduction of growth hormone (GH) and insulin-growth factor 1 (IGF-1), in most cases based on a pituitary adenoma. The increased IGF-1 and GH levels lead to the growth of acres and organs as well as metabolic changes. When manifesting before epiphyseal closure, a giant growth develops.Case Report: A Ukrainian girl presented at the age of 14 years with enlargem...

Background: Milk supplementation increases serum IGF-I concentrations in healthy children and the effect is attributed to elevation of insulin and/or direct effects of milk proteins. Low serum IGF-I concentrations are common among children with short stature and may be associated with GH deficiency but poor nutrition/malabsorption may also contribute. Effects of nutritional supplementation on serum IGF-I is poorly studied in short children.Aim: To invest...

Background: Delaying puberty with GnRHa in an attempt to improve final height in GH treated children is relatively common in clinical practice. Such treatment is only supported by one retrospective study in which pubertal start was relatively early.Objective and hypotheses: To retrospectively assess adult height in children with short stature treated with GH and receiving or not receiving GnRHa. We hypothesized that delaying puberty with GnRHa improves a...

Background: Disorders of sex development (DSD) can be caused by many hormonal and genetic defects. One rare condition is a mutation of the SRY-gene disturbing normal sex differentiation. Identical twins with this disorder of varying degree are presented to learn how difficult social sex assignment may be in such a case.Case presentation: Identical 46, XY twins were born in 1985 from non consanguineous, healthy parents of German origin. T...

Background/Aims: Length and weight of all children in Flanders are monitored every three years at school from the age of 3 years. The current criteria used for referral to specialized care are: height SDS < -2.5, height SDS between -2 and -2.5 SDS with a height SDS adjusted for parental height < -1.64, or a decrease in height SDS of more than 1 SDS in the past 3 years. The aim of this study is to investigate the sensitivity of the Flemish referral criter...