ESPE Abstracts

Context: Osteocalcin is a bone formation marker that has recently sparked interest for its endocrine involvement in glucose homeostasis and obesity. Nevertheless, its natural pattern during infancy and early childhood remains unknown.Objectives: We established reference values for total serum osteocalcin during specific timepoints from birth until five years of age, and presented these in the context of covariates.<p...

Background: We have previously shown radioimmunoassay (RIA) and gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS) to be comparable when analyzing estradiol and testosterone concentrations in prepubertal and pubertal children. However, the reliability for steroid hormone determination with RIA in umbilical cord blood is not known. In general, older studies using RIA show higher values of testosterone, than more recent ones using MS/MS.Patients and me...

Background: GH promotes longitudinal growth and bone modeling/remodeling. The bone formation markers intact amino-terminal propeptide of type 1 procollagen (PINP), bone-specific alkaline phosphatase (BALP), and osteocalcin reflect different stages in bone formation, i.e. proliferation with collagen synthesis, matrix maturation, and mineralization.Objective: The purpose was to study the time course of different bone formation markers during GH treatment i...

Background: GH is secreted in a pulsatile manner. The resulting GH peaks are known to be associated with growth, whereas the trough levels between the peaks are thought to be associated with metabolism in different tissues. GH trough levels were identified as a metabolically active signal in rats in the 1980th leading to differences in fat patterning with central obesity. Obese children are known to have low bone mass and bone mass is reduced in short children.<p class="ab...

Background: The importance of vitamin D for skeletal health is well established and many recent reports indicate that vitamin D deficiency is linked to chronic diseases. Vitamin D status is defined by serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D), and although there is no consensus on optimal levels of 25(OH)D concentrations of 50 nmol/l (20 ng/ml) meet the requirements in 97.5% of the population. In Sweden, sun cannot synthesize vitamin D during the winter, therefore supplementation is...

Background: Secondary forms of diabetes mellitus (DM) are underdiagnosed in children and adolescents with cancer because despite the whole body of evidence that asparaginase, steroids and total body irradiation increase the risk of developing DM, risk factors are missing and – asides from treatments – understudied (e.g., pre-existing obesity, sex, age, ethnicity, family history of DM). The objectives of our study were to assess the incidence and asso...

Introduction: Children with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) and adrenal insufficiency (AI) rely on lifelong hormone replacement with hydrocortisone (HC). Alkindi® is the first HC licensed for children from birth to 18 years with AI, available in small doses of 0.5, 1, 2 and 5mg required for the needs of neonates, infants and children.Objectives: Primary: long-term safety of Alkindi®; Secondary: long-term d...

Introduction: Worldwide the Short Synacthen Test (SST) is the most popular diagnostic investigation for adrenal insufficiency (AI) amongst both paediatric and adult endocrinologists. Cannulation and blood sampling are required making it invasive, time-consuming and resource-intensive. We have previously validated a reliably absorbed and well tolerated formulation of nasal synacthen (Nasacthin003) in healthy adult males, measuring the glucocorticoid response in salivary cortiso...

Background: Fetal skeletal bone development and mineralisation depends on placental calcium transfer. Although Parathyroid Hormone (PTH) pathway has some contribution, TRPV6 (the sixth member of the Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid family) is a recently identified receptor involved in calcium transport and is predominantly expressed in the placenta. It has not previously been linked with skeletal development disorders.Case: This infant had...

Background: Serum dihydrotestosterone (DHT) is an important analyte for the clinical assessment of disorders of sex development. It is also reportedly a difficult analyte to measure. Currently there are significant gaps in the standardisation of this analyte, including no external quality assurance (EQA) program available worldwide to allow for peer performance review of DHT.Objective and hypotheses: We therefore proposed to establish an EQA program for ...