ESPE Abstracts

Background: Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) is a rare group of congenital adrenal diseases with an estimated prevalence of about ten newly diagnosed patients in the Netherlands per year. Morbidity and mortality improved significantly in the last 20 years mainly due to improvement of multidisciplinary care and education of patients and parents. In the last years the role of the nurse practitioner (NP) as case manager in the care and follow up of patients with chronic disea...

Background: Pain represents one of the most stressful experiences for children undergoing medical therapies (Kortesluoma, 2008), but is under represented in literature for what concerns pediatric endocrinology. Children consider Injections one of the most painful, frighteningand distressing procedures (Fassler, 1985). The treatment for patients with Growth Hormone Deficiency requires daily subcutaneous injection, performed by parents or patients themselves. Th...

Background: Neonatal hypocalcemia is a common disorder, occurring more often in premature, low birth weight and asphyxiated infants, as in infants born to mothers with diabetes. Nevertheless its aetiology is heterogeneous ranging from iatrogenic, idiopathic and inherited metabolic abnormalities. Among these, Autosomal Dominant Hypocalcemia (ADH) is a rare syndrome characterized by the presence of inappropriately low concentration of circulating parathyroid hor...

Context: Children with 21-hydroxylase deficiency (21OHD) require chronic glucocorticoid administration to substitute glucocorticoids and suppress adrenocorticotropic hormone-induced hyperandrogenemia. There is still no evidence about the best timing of the highest hydrocortisone (HC) dose. Administration of the highest dose in the morning aims to mimic the physiological rhythm of cortisol, while a high dose late in the evening may inhibit the early-morning inc...

Background: Preterm newborns (PN) are at risk of developing congenital hypothyroidism (CH) with a high reported incidence (1:300 vs 1:2000 for at term newborns). The study's objective was to determine the TSH percentiles at neonatal screening (NS) in PN and to analyze the incidence of permanent and transient CH in this population.Materials and Methods: PN born in the Piedmont Region of Italy in the period 2019-2021 ...

Bone fragility is a more typical condition of old age, linked to physiological aging. In pediatric age, on the contrary, it represents a rare problem, but more often has an underlying primary cause. This condition manifests itself in most cases with recurrent or abnormal fractures and bone deformities, with a limitation of mobility, bone pain and consequent reduction in the quality of life of the child. The great difficulty for the clinician consists in reaching a correct diag...

Background: Hypoparathyroidism is characterized by absence or inadequately low circulating concentrations of parathyroid hormone, resulting in hypocalcaemia, hyperphosphataemia and elevated fractional excretion of calcium in the urine. The use of activated vitamin D analogues and calcium supplements are recommended as the primary therapy. To avoid vitamin D and calcium side effects, subcutaneous recombinant human parathormone [rhPTH (1-34)] has been proposed f...

Introduction: Developed countries have shown, among the 20th century, a time trend towards a younger age at menarche. Tanner described an anticipation of 3 months every decade. In the last two decades of twenty century we have observed an apparent stabilization of menarche age in most of Western countries.Objective: analyze average age of menarche in Tuscany girls and compare our results with those in literatu...

Introduction: Copeptin is a stable AVP surrogate, secreted in equimolar relationship, who has been proposed for the diagnosis of AVP-related hypo and hypernatremic disorders, i.e. the syndrome of inappropriate ADH secretions (SIADH), the cerebral/renal salt wasting syndrome (C/RSW) and diabetes insipidus (DI). Few data exist about the normal ranges for plasma copeptin levels in the pediatric age, reported between 2.4-8.6 pmol/L. The aim of this study is to rep...

Introduction: Although vitamin D deficit is the most common cause of rickets there are many rare genetically transmitted forms as hypophosphatemic rickets, a family of hereditary diseases characterized by low phosphorous plasma levels and resistance to 25OH-vitamin D replacement.Case report: This is the case of a 3.6 year-old Italian child sent from the General Pediatrician, for rickets suspicion. Silent personal history...