ESPE Abstracts

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...

Background/Objectives: Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Even if CVD become mainly manifest in adulthood, the process of atherosclerosis starts in childhood. Ultrasound is a reliable and noninvasive method for detecting early structural and functional atherosclerotic changes in arterial wall and heart. Aim of this study was to determine early ultrasound signs of atherosclerosis and of left ventricular (LV) syst...

Background: Short stature is one of the most common presentations to paediatric endocrinologists. It is estimated that despite all the exams, in 50–90% of cases, children are labeled as having idiopathic short stature. It has been recently reported that genetic ACE2 deficiency is associated with reduced body weight as well as with impaired gestational weight gain and fetal growth restriction in pregnancy. It has been argued that ACE2 deficiency, which...

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: Between 2011 and 2015, 294 children from 15 UK centres were randomised to the SCIPI study (SubCutaneous Insulin: Pumps or Injections?), which compares insulin delivery by pump to multiple daily injections, during the first year following diagnosis of type I diabetes. HbA1c is measured every 3 months, locally by (1) a ‘point of care’ device or a local laboratory and (2) a central laboratory. Since 2009 HbA1c assays have been calibrated against the Internat...

Background: Improved tools for diagnosis, a higher malignancy risk in thyroid nodules and the referral to surgery in Grave’s disease when medication fails, have lead to increased thyroidectomies in children.Objective and hypotheses: The aim of our study was to evaluate thyroid surgery outcomes and the presence of transient or permanent complications, in a cohort of children who underwent surgery, with the same surgical team, in the last 10 years.</p...