ESPE Abstracts

Aim: The objective of the study was to determine bone mineralisation density in Turner syndrome (TS) from DSD life cohort, and to analyse the trabecular (lumbar spine = LS) and cortical bone (femoral neck = FN) mineralisation.Materials and Methods: This study was part of the DSD-LIFE study, a cross-sectional clinical outcome study of the BMD of TS adult patients from paediatric cohorts. BMD of the LS and FN were ...

Background: Solidarity-based healthcare systems face significant challenges due to the rising costs of new and highly expensive medicines for cancer and rare diseases. The Dutch government introduced the Coverage Lock (CL) policy in 2015 to restrict access to reimbursement for such drugs. The CL has raised controversy around its ethical acceptability. Some claim the CL is necessary to secure solidarity while others have pointed out that its leads to unfair ine...

Background: Growth hormone therapy can be indicated for children who are born small for gestation age (SGA) (either birth weight or birth height < -2 SDS) without catch-up growth (height < -2.5 SDS) at age 4 years. Growth hormone therapy is considered a safe treatment.Case presentation: A 12-year-old girl was referred to the pediatric endocrinologist for short stature. She was born small for gestational age (birth ...

The majority of patients with Variations of Sex Development (VSD) lack a genetic diagnosis. Patients that are born with atypical chromosomal, gonadal, or phenotypical sex, present a wide spectrum of phenotypes that are often associated with ambiguous genitalia, infertility as well as increased susceptibility to testicular or ovarian cancer. Many different genetic causes of VSD have been reported [2], but for more than 50% [3] of all VSD patients, the molecular cause of their c...

Background: Pseudoisodicentric X chromosomes with an Xq deletion (46,X,idic(Xq)) are rare. Most cases are mosaic, the other cell line being 45,X. Nonmosaicism is rare. Phenotype is characterized by the resultant of the X deletion. Variations from short to tall stature can occur and premature ovarian failure is a common feature.Case presentation: A 16 year old girl was referred to our clinic with primary amenorrhoea. She ...

Background: In children born SGA with persistent short stature, growth hormone (GH) treatment is an approved therapy for increasing adult height (AH). Some SGA children have an advanced bone age (BA) during GH. Heterozygous mutations in the ACAN-gene have been described in children with idiopathic short stature and advanced BA.Objective and hypotheses: To assess growth during GH treatment with additional GnRHa treatment, in children with ACAN-gene mutati...

Background: GH treatment is effective in improving adult height (AH) in short children born Small for Gestational Age. If SGA children are short at the start of puberty, they could benefit from combined GH/GnRH Analogue (GnRHa) treatment.Objective and hypotheses: To determine the timing and progression of pubertal development in short SGA children, comparing GH treatment with combined GH/GnRHa treatment.Method: For the present stud...

Background: Congenital panhypopituitarism is associated with a variety of gene mutations. Abnormalities in the Gli2 gene were only recently described to be associated with congenital panhypopituitarism (Franca et al. 2010). Gli2 is a gene that encodes a transcription factor downstream of the Sonic Hedgehog pathway – known to play an important role in morphogenesis during embryology.Objective and hypotheses: Although Gli2 mutations were described to ...

Background: The French population of the SAGhE study showed an increased morbidity and mortality due to cerebrovascular disease in growth hormone (GH) treated subjects compared to the general population. Cerebrovascular health can be assessed using neuroimaging markers on MRI. One of the markers is white matter hyperintensity (WMH).Objective: To assess cerebrovascular health by scoring WMH on MRI in young adults born sma...

Background: Rapid BMI increase in early childhood was found to be a contributing factor for impaired final height in boys with Cystic Fibrosis (CF). This may be explained by early adrenarche triggering an accelerated bone maturation resulting in a compromised growth spurt during puberty, comparable to children with SGA. In healthy Dutch boys, adrenarche starts from the age of 9 years with DHEAS ≥ 1 µmol/L. In Dutch girls, the onset of adrenarche is fr...