ESPE Abstracts

Background: Microtubules, polar polymers of αβ-tubulin heterodimers, constitute dynamic cytoskeletal structures implicated in the regulation of axonal activity along with neuronal proliferation and migration. Tubulinopathies, caused by pathogenic variants in genes encoding different isotypes of tubulin, lead to a wide and overlapping range of nervous system malformations and neurodevelopmental disorders. Namely, heterozygous missense and nonsense mu...

Background: Several lines of evidence suggest that the adult pituitary contains a population of tissue-specific stem cells capable of differentiating into hormone-producing cells. Previously, we have shown that Sox2+ve cells are able to self-renew and differentiate in vitro, suggesting that this population of undifferentiated cells may contain stem cells in vivo. When targeted with oncogenic mutations adult stem cells can become cancer stem cells, able to self-renew and give r...

Background: Gonadotropin releasing hormone analogs (GnRHa) are effective in improving adult height in children with precocious onset of puberty, rapid progression, and good growth potential. In last years, however, some transient metabolic complications have been described during the treatment without the reassurance of long-term data yet. The aim of our study is to clarify if body mass index (BMI) at diagnosis of idiopathic central precocious puberty (iCPP) c...

Introduction: COVID-19 pandemic, by restricting outside activities, encouraged a sedentary lifestyle due to social distancing and, alongside, an increase in the consumption of canned food and industrialized foods, resulting in a negative impact on the growth of children and young people (CYP). Concerns for consequences in CYP with type 1 diabetes (T1D) rose.Objectives: To investigate 1-year effects of the COVID-19 pandem...

Introduction: The true incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in children and young people (CYP) is unclear and data are influenced by testing strategies. CYP have so far accounted for 17.5-22% of diagnosed infections. In adults, diabetes was identified as risk factor for severe symptoms and hospitalization with the COVID-19. Eighteen months into the pandemic, studies in CYP with type 1 diabetes (T1D) reported only an increased prevalence of diabetic ketoacidosis (...

Background: Heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HeFH) is characterized by severely elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels and premature cardiovascular disease. European guidelines currently support the initiation of statin therapy by age 8-10 years in patients with HeFH to slow the progression of endothelial disfunction and to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease in adulthood. However, to date, there is lack of data on adheren...

Background/Objectives: Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a chronic metabolic disease that requires daily and complex management for both patients and their caregivers, impairing the quality of life. Aim of this cross-sectional observational study was to determine whether metabolic control and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of T1D subjects and their parents could be influenced by immigration status.Methods: We enrolled 125...

Background: Extra Uterine Growth Restriction (EUGR) represents a serious comorbidity in infants born very low birth weight (VLBW). In fact, failure in postnatal growth and malnutrition at vulnerable ages can interfere with growth recovery and neurodevelopment at older ages.Hypothesis: Aim of the study was to assess whether and how the postnatal early growth patterns of VLBW may affect later growth, spontaneous motility a...

Childhood obesity became a global plague: 9% of Italian children (17% of USA children) is obese and 21% is overweight. Nowadays only a small number of obese children undergoes genetic analysis, usually when obesity is associated with dysmorphic features. Our purpose was to identify genomic rearrangement causing obesity: we analyzed the DNA of 52 children by array-CGH (platform CytoScan-HD, Affymetrix). Patients included in our study were 29 males (55,8%) and 23...

Introduction: CPHD is characterized by GH and at least one other pituitary hormone deficiency. Mutations in genes expressed in the developing head, hypothalamus, and/or pituitary cause CPHD. To date around 30 genes have been identified to be related to CPHD, however the 85% of the cases remain with unknown aetiology. Whole Exome Sequencing (WES) enables parallel searching for pathogenic variants of CPHD in targeted known gene panels as well as the identifi...