ESPE Abstracts

Background: According to international guidelines Prader-Willi children during GH treatment must be closely monitored by polysomnography, ENT evaluation and IGF1 levels.Objective and hypotheses: The study aims to determine whether the modulation of GH therapy in children and adolescents with Prader-Willi Syndrome with a specific decisional score (POI score; Salvatoni A., Horm Res Paediatr. 2012) changes and to what extent the results of the therapy.<...

Background: Neonatal vitamin D deficiency (VDD) can result in symptomatic hypocalcemia, seizures and cardiomyopathy and has been associated with reduced bone mineralization in childhood, but is potentially preventable with antenatal cholecalciferol supplementation. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the vitamin D metabolism pathway are associated with serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] in adulthood. We assessed whether maternal and/or offspring SNPs in ...

Background: In later life, osteoporosis and poor cognitive function often co-exist. This has commonly been attributed to post-menopausal estrogen loss, but there is increasing recognition of cross-talk between the brain and bone. For example, in animal models, bone derived osteocalcin has positive associations with brain volume and cognitive function whilst brain-derived neurotransmitters appear to influence bone mass. Despite this, a common early life origin ...

Background: Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is a common endocrine disorder among women of reproductive age and is characterised by chronic low-grade inflammation, ovulatory dysfunction and hyperandrogenism, and often by insulin resistance. The IGF system is involved in glucose metabolism regulation and is altered in chronic inflammation where both IGF-I and –II can be reduced. We previously described increased HMGB1 content in follicular fluid (FF) in P...

Background: Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GNRH) and its receptor (GNRHR) are central regulators of puberty. Loss-of-function mutations of the GNRH-GNRHR signaling pathway are associated with congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, but no mutations were reported so far in patients with central precocious puberty (CPP). Animal data demonstrate the importance of microRNAs in pubertal timing regulation. Among others, miR200b regulates Gnrh1 gene expression in GnRH neu...

Background: Congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (HH) is a rare but clinically and genetically heterogeneous disease characterized by an absent or incomplete puberty and infertility. The association of HH with hyposmia or anosmia is defined as Kallmann syndrome. Molecular genetic testing of HH is valuable, as it can prompt the treatment in adolescence.Objective and hypotheses: To identify causative variants in genes associated with HH in a cohort of ...

Background: Resistance to thyroid hormones (RTH) is a rare disease, characterized by reduced sensitivity of target tissues to thyroid hormones. Pathognomonically, thyroid hormones are moderately elevated, whereas TSH levels are inappropriately normal or elevated. Over 100 thyroid hormone receptor beta (THRB) mutations have been reported, which are found in around 85% of RTH cases. Hypercholesterolemia was not previously reported in RTH patients....

Background: Decreasing age at the onset of puberty is observed worldwide, several countries report also increasing incidence trends of central precocious puberty (CPP), and some observed an importantly higher number of CPP cases during the COVID19 pandemic. Scarce data report also rising trends in isolated precocious adrenarche (IPA) and isolated precocious telarche (IPT).Objectives: To determine the national incidence a...

Introduction: Central precocious puberty (CPP) is due to premature activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis. Mutations in the imprinted gene MKRN3 are the most common monogenic form of CPP. Recently, attention was directed to DLK1, another imprinted gene. Defects in this gene resulted to be a rare cause of CPP in girls and adult women with precocious menarche, obesity and metabolic derangement. We aimed to investigate a cohort of female and male p...

Context: Severe forms of growth hormone insensitivity (GHI) are characterised by extreme short stature, dysmorphism and metabolic anomalies. They are classically caused by homozygous or compound heterozygous mutations of the growth hormone receptor gene (GHR). Genetic analysis traditionally focuses on the exonic regions of genes that encode proteins rather than the intervening non-coding sequences. These seldom explored non-coding regions may harbour ...