ESPE Abstracts

Background: Measurement of salivary glucocorticoids is an accepted method for testing adrenal function and is gaining popularity as it offers a non-invasive collection technique, enabling sampling in the community or home environment, allowing tailored capture of steroid circadian rhythm and improved patient experience. However, there is little data on stability during home collection and sampling methods in young children. Current salivary collection techniqu...

Background: The Short Synacthen Test (SST) is the most popular test of adrenal insufficiency (AI) worldwide. The current SST protocol at Sheffield Children’s Hospital (SCH), UK, recommends measurement of serum cortisol at baseline, then 30- and 60-minutes post stimulation, with a peak cortisol of >429nmol/l constituting a pass. Our practice has evolved to consider near-pass results as “borderline” and patients may be treated with stress do...

Introduction: Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) has an incidence of 1:14 000 to 1:18 000 worldwide. It is caused by autosomal recessive gene mutations. Neonates typically present with virilization at birth, or in shock, ‘salt-losing crisis’, around days 10–14 of life. Some children present later with simple virilizing CAH, often with milder compound heterozygous mutations. Reactive thrombocytosis is a rare manifestation in CAH. Gasparini <...

Hypothyroidism is the most common thyroid disorder in children. It usually presents with nonspecific symptoms, that can be mild and occur slowly over time, compromising a timely diagnosis, with possible effects on pituitary gland, multiple organs and growth. In case of long-standing unrecognized hypothyroidism, myxedema or myxedema coma can occur, rare but severe conditions. This case report describes an adolescent presenting with extensive trunk and neck swelling. After exclu...

Purpose: Patients with growth hormone deficiency (GHD) show low fitness levels before GH treatment is started. Muscular strength, flexibility and postural stability are related to health and quality of life. Since it is widely recognized that physical activity increases GH secretion and GH could ameliorate fitness, if a high adherence to treatment is documented (1), the purpose of this study is to investigate any difference on posturographic parameters and mus...

Purpose: Needs in terms of quality of life (QoL), consisting of physical, emotional and social domains, represent a hot spot in idiopathic short stature (ISS). Between ISS, it is estimated that 12% can have SHOX deficiency. Furthermore, SHOX deficiency can affect posture and GH treatment ameliorate their QoL. Although scientific research has investigated many fields of the physical domain, very few studies highlighted how this pathological condition may af...

Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is the most common thyroid tumor in childhood and adolescence. Most of these patients are referred with locally advanced and/or distant disease at the moment of diagnosis. Whenever is possible, these patients should be offered a total thyroidectomy and radioiodine remnant ablation. However, this approach is not always possible to perform, becoming these tumors as unresectable. These critical cases could benefit from the neoadjuvant treatment with...

Background: Turner syndrome (TS) affects about one in 2500 liveborn females. It results from the loss of all or part of X-chromosome and has a variable phenotype. The classical form is characterised by short stature, skeletal abnormalities, lymphedema, renal and cardiac anomalies, webbed neck, peculiar neurocognitive profile and gonadal dysgenesis. While loss of up to 2/3 of the X chromosome short arm is compatible with normal fertility, chromosome deletions involving Xq are o...

Background: Subclinical hypothyroidism is a common finding in Down syndrome (DS) patients and transition towards overt hypothyroidism can occur, but there are no predictor factors to identify patients that will need replacement therapy later in life.Objective and hypotheses: This is a retrospective cohort study on a population of DS paediatric patients. This study was designed to evaluate possible early predictive features of hypothyroidism development.<...

Introduction: Graves-Basedow disease (GD) is the most common cause of thyrotoxicosis in pediatric age. Multi-factorial pathogenesis stand on the basis of the autoimmune disorder activation, leading to lymphocyte imbalance that include increased CD4+ and CD8+ subtypes, increased CD4+/CD8+ ratio and B cells dysregulation. The aim of this study is to determine the potential prognostic value of lymphocyte population parameters in pediatric GD.<p class="abstext...