ESPE Abstracts

Introduction: Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is a disorder with a wide spectrum of severity. Impaired cognition has been reported in patients with CAH, although the findings have been conflicting. It has been hypothesized that the major causes of the deficits are prenatal hormonal imbalances and/or excessive glucocorticoid treatment.Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate cognitive function in chi...

Introduction: Steroid profiling in children with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is used to monitor the balance between androgen and cortisol metabolites and to decide on the optimal glucocorticoid dosage. Twenty-four hour collection is the gold standard for measurement of steroid metabolites in urine, because steroid production follows a circadian rhythm and is influenced by short-term stress and steroid drugs. For some children, e.g. those who were diap...

Introduction: The wide aromatization of androgens during puberty is responsible for the rapid bone maturation at this age. In this context, the use of aromatase inhibitors (AIs) has been justified by the potential to slow down the advancement of bone age and thus improve growth. For more than two decades, studies have pointed out the validity of AIs to improve the predicted final height (PFH). However, data on near-final height (NFH) of children treated with A...

Background and objective: Delayed puberty is defined as a lack of the physical signs of puberty in boys by 14 years or beyond the reference age of population standards. This study aims to evaluate the pubertal development and final height (FH) outcome in patients presented with delayed puberty due to hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (HH) and constitutional delay in growth and puberty (CDGP).Design and participants: The hosp...

Background: GH secretion is classically assessed by provocative tests and, indirectly, by IGF-1 serum levels. However, their diagnostic accuracy is low. The aim of the study was to evaluate the adult height (AH) in short patients with IGF-1 ≤-1,5 SDS.Method: 52 short patients (height-SDS -2.6 (-3.1- -2.3), age 12.2 (10.2-13.7) y, 36 boys), with low height velocity(HV)-SDS (-1.6 (-3.2- -0.9)) and IGF-1 ≤-1,5 SDS (-2...

Introduction: Peripubertal children with delayed puberty frequently display a poor growth rate prompting endocrine work-up. Whether priming with sex steroids should routinely be performed in these patients to improve specificity of growth hormone stimulation tests (GHST) is unclear. Treatment with sex steroids in constitutional delay of growth and puberty (CDGP) is also debated.Patients and Methods: This multicenter retr...

Purpose: Central precocious puberty (CPP) is less common in boys than girls; very little data is reported on long-term effects of gonadotropin-releasing hormone analog (GnRHa) treatment in boys with CPP. The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of treatment with GnRHa on adult height (AH) and body mass index (BMI) in boys with idiopathic CPP.Subjects and Methods: In 18 boys with confirmed diagnosis of idiopathic C...

Background: Children with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) show endocrine complications and metabolic alterations. The physiopathology of these conditions is not completely understood: iron overload due to chronic transfusions, ischemic damage, and inflammatory state related to vaso-occlusive crises may be involved. Aims of this study were to evaluate the growth pattern and the endocrine and metabolic alterations in a cohort of children with SCD and to detect the relationship between...

Background: Bone marrow transplantation (BMTx) involves pre-conditioning regimens that compromise fertility Delayed puberty and hypogonadism are common in children with beta thalassemia major, due to chronic disease and transfusion requirements, due to iron overload in endocrine glands.Objective and hypotheses: Pubertal induction using hCG and FSH prior to gonadotoxic conditioning before BMTx should result in spermatogenesis sufficient to store sperm. We...

Background: The abnormalities of the Internal Carotid Artery (ICA) are very rare phenomenona and the agenesis, in particular, has an estimated incidence of 0,01% among the general population. It could also be associated with another rare condition: the congenital hypopituitarism.Objective and hypotheses: To describe a very rare case characterized by the association between congenital hypopituitarism and abnormalities of the internal carotid artery.<p...