ESPE Abstracts

SHOX gene haploinsufficiency is a well-documented cause of short stature and skeletal abnormalities; SHOX duplications appear very rare and of uncertain clinical significance. If relatively extended, they can result in SHOX overexpression with normal or tall stature. Partial SHOX duplications seems to have a more deleterious effect on skeletal dysplasia and short stature than complete SHOX duplications. MLPA (Multiplex Ligation-dependent Probe Amplification) analysis of SHOX/P...

Pulmonary carcinoid tumors represent well-differentiated pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors, which include typical and atypical carcinoids. This type of lung tumors is rare, but represents the most common primary malignant lung tumor in children and adolescents, especially the typical carcinoids. They can be asymptomatic at the time of diagnosis or can present with nonspecific findings like recurrent pneumonia, cough, and hemoptysis. We report the case of a 15-year-old girl reffe...

Introduction: Thyroid hormones (THs) play a crucial role in growth, brain development and function and metabolic homeostasis. The sensitivity to TH indices seems to be associated with metabolic syndrome (MS), prediabetes and diabetes in adults. We evaluated the sensitivity to TH indices in a pediatric population with neuromotor disability in relationship with the MS presence, using a multivariate analysis (MVA).Patients and Metho...

Background: Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) recipients exhibit excess adiposity that may result in an increased metabolic risk. Studies have shown that BMI is a poor predictor of body fatness in pediatric HSCT survivors population where diminished lean mass has been documented. The visceral adiposity index (VAI) has recently been proposed as a predictor of cardio-metabolic risk in both adults and children. However, the predictive value of this i...

Background: The role of retinol binding protein 4 (RBP4) in the insulin resistance associated with obesity is still unclear and various studies have analyzed the role of its gene polymorphisms as a potential key to understanding the mechanisms involved.Aim: The current study aimed to analyze the relationship between RBP4 levels, the distribution of two SNP (rs3758539 and rs10882280) and the metabolic, anthropometric para...

Objective: Acute adrenal crisis is one of the main concerns in children with classic congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). The aim of this study was to evaluate hypoglycemic and salt-wasting episodes in children with an established diagnosis of classic 21-hydroxylase deficiency (21-OHD) after start of treatment.Methods: A retrospective observational study was conducted for 85 patients with classic CAH (68 salt-wasting and 17 simple virilizing), aged 1 to...

Background: Growth Hormone (GH) plays an important role in linear growth and in bone turnover during childhood. GH deficiency (GHD) may cause secondary osteoporosis associated to low bone mineral density (BMD), impairment of bone turnover and increased fracture rate. The effects of treatment with recombinant human Growth Hormone (rhGH) on bone metabolism are controversial. We aimed to assess BMD using dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) among a cohort of children with GHD ...

Background: Several visfatin, retinol binding protein 4(RBP4) and high affinity receptor for RBP4, STRA6 (stimulated by retinoic acid) single nuclear polymorphisms’ (SNP) have been investigated regarding their relationship with obesity with controversial results.Aim: To analyze the association of two specific SNP for visfatin, RBP4 and STRA6 with anthropometric markers of obesity in children.Material and method: A case control...

Clinical history and symptoms: XX, 9.37 years, was referred to our Clinic for obesity and psycho-motor delay. Family history: Fibromyalgic mother, two maternal cousins with psycho-motor delay, paternal uncle with epilepsy and intellectual disability. Born at term from caesarean section for placental detachment after physiological pregnancy (birth weight g 1900, SGA). In the first years of life she had psychomotor retardation, episodes of affective spasms, nocturnal enuresis, a...

Childhood obesity is the consequence of a complex interaction among several factors: environment, genetics, endocrine disorders, medications and other conditions. Genetic factors are described to be causal factors in up to 30–50% of overweight conditions. Although polygenetic obesity is by far the most commonly observed, several obesity related syndromes associated with single gene defects have been identified.Case presentation: A three year old gir...