ESPE Abstracts

Insulin resistance and hepato-visceral (central) fat excess are thought to contribute to an earlier timing of adrenarche/pubarche and puberty/menarche; this earlier timing in turn relates often to a mismatch between pre- and postnatal weight gain, which can be estimated by calculating the Z-score change from birth weight (BW) to body mass index (BMI) in childhood. We tested the hypothesis that this calculation may serve as a proxy of insulin resistance and hepato-visceral adip...

Background: At a population level, increasing age/sex corrected BMI Z-score (BMI-Z) is associated with increased risk of complications. It is unclear whether severity of obesity is a good predictor of comorbidities within groups of obese children. This knowledge is required to inform clinical management and pathways of care.Objective and hypotheses: In obese youth, to identify whether 1 increasing BMI-Z+/− waist/height ratio(WHtR) is associated wit...

Background: Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is the most common form of primary adrenal insufficiency in children. 21-hydroxylase enzyme deficiency (21-OHD) occurs in 90–95% of all cases of CAH. Despite it being a treatable condition, if unrecognized, CAH may present with life-threatening cardiovascular collapse. Mortality in the first years is reported to be higher than in the general population. Neonatal screening for CAH is effective in detecting the salt-wasting f...

Background: Rare genetic diseases of obesity can be caused by genetic variants leading to disrupted activity of the melanocortin-4 receptor pathway (MC4R). Setmelanotide, an MC4R agonist, is being investigated in a basket study of populations with rare variants in different genes in the MC4R pathway who have early-onset, severe obesity and hyperphagia.Methods: This ongoing, Phase 2, open-label study (NCT03013543) enrolle...

Background: The peptides obestatin and adropin are thought to regulate glucose and lipid metabolism, weight gain, and fluid intake in adults. The roles of obestatin and adropin in the regulation of weight and glucose and lipid metabolism in Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) and non-syndromic pediatric obesity are poorly understood. This study compares the concentrations of obestatin and adropin in infants and children with PWS and age- and BMI-z matched controls, and explores the as...

Introduction: Early and fast puberty (EFP) in girls, defined as pubertal onset at age 8-9 yr., with an accelerated course, may cause compromised final adult height (FAHt). Treatment with a gonadotropin-suppressive agent is still controversial because the improvement in FAHt is equivocal and there may be a risk of overweight.Aim of the study: We analyzed the data of 24 girls with EFP treated with GnRH analog (GnRH) since Tanner stage 2-3,...

Background: In both asthma and vitamin D deficiency is common. The results from studies examining the relationship between them is contradictory.Objective and hypotheses: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship vitamin D levels and clinical parameters of asthma in children.Method: One hundred twenty children with asthma, followed up in Pediatric Allergy and Immunology Department were included. Seventy-four childre...

Background: Maternal ovarian luteoma is a rare condition that may cause virilization of female fetuses.Case presentation: We present the case of a baby born at 29 weeks gestational age to a 20 yo mother with history of two spontaneous abortions and no live births. Physical exam after birth revealed ambiguous genitalia, with a stretched phallic length of 1 cm with hypospadias on the ventral surface of phallus and complete fusion of rugated labioscrotal fo...

Suboptimal head growth in utero and in early neonatal life may affect linear growth and weight gain during infancy. We studied linear growth and weight gain of 56 preterms (GA = 33.5 +/- 2.2 weeks) with birth weight >1.5 < 2.5 kg) for two years. They were classified at birth into two groups (group 1 with HCZ <-1) (relatively small head for GA) (35 +/- 2 weeks) and group 2 with HCZ > -1 (GA = 33 +/- 1.7 weeks)Results: Preterm ...

Background: The most common endocrine cause of growth disorders in childhood is growth hormone deficiency (GHD). The rare monogenic forms of GHD are inherited as autosomal dominant or recessive traits and manifest as isolated deficiency or in combination with other hormone deficiencies. Here, we report on a three-year-old girl with a severe growth retardation (height 77 cm, – 5.6 S.D.S.). She is the only child of non-consanguineous parents from northern Ira...