ESPE Abstracts

Introduction: Paediatric morbid obesity (BMI >99.6th centile for age) causes severe obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) requiring respiratory support. Patient prognosis is poor and requires urgent intervention. Four patients with morbid obesity and severe OSA were admitted for multidisciplinary team (MDT) intensive weight management and continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) initiation.Methods: The patients...

Human growth is a complex trait. A considerable number of gene defects have been shown to cause short stature, but there are only few examples of genetic causes of non-syndromic tall stature. Besides rare variants with large effects and common risk alleles with small effect size, oligogenic effects may contribute to this phenotype. Exome sequencing was carried out in a tall male (height 3.5 SDS) and his parents. Filtered damaging variants with high CADD scores were validated b...

Background: Very tall people attract a lot of attention and represent a clinically and genetically heterogenous group of individuals. Identifying the genetic etiology can provide important insights into the molecular mechanisms regulating linear growth.Methods and Results: We studied a three-generation pedigree with several isolated (non-syndromic) tall members by whole exome sequencing; the tallest man had a height of 2...

Background: Children and young people living with severe obesity experience a range of complications of excess weight (CEW), however the prevalence of complications is not well defined. We have evaluated baseline clinical characteristics and CEW of patients seen in two multi-disciplinary tier-3 paediatric weight management services in different regions of the UK.Methods: All new patients (n=185) aged 2-17 years ...

Background: Sp7, also known as Osterix (Osx), is a zinc-finger transcription factor, essential for osteoblast differentiation and bone formation. While bone formation is absent in Osx knockout mice, human loss of function mutations lead to impaired bone formation and cause recessive osteogenesis imperfecta, type XII (OMIM 613849 ).Case: The 5-year-old son of non-consanguineous parents presented with multiple long bone fr...

Background: Hypothalamic obesity (HyOb) is a disease characterized by weight gain resistant to lifestyle changes and dietary restriction. The main clinical findings are hyperfagia and decline of satiety, high levels of insulin and an increase of adipogenesis. The major problem for these patients is that conventional treatments, either medical or surgical are not succesful and have variable results.Objective and hypotheses: We aim to describe the natural ...

NMDA (N-Methyl-D-aspartic acid) receptors have been shown to control the timing of sexual maturation in laboratory animals. Therefore, variants in genes impacting NMDA receptor signaling might be predicted to affect human puberty. We studied an extended family with extremely delayed puberty (menarche at 16.5 - 18 years for female family members and pubertal onset at 16 years for male family members). Exome sequencing revealed a rare missense variant (F900V) in DLG2, w...

Background: Arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) are rare in kids, estimated to represent 3% of all AVMs. They tend to rupture more frequently than in adults and, usually, are brought to attention after rupture, as the most common non-traumatic intracerebral hemorrhage. AVMs could also present with recurrent seizures or headaches. Their optimal management remains controversial.Case report: We present the case of a 4.5 y old boy, presented in our department...

Background: Adenotonsillectomy is one of the most common surgical procedure performed in children in Romania. Child obesity also, seems to follow the same trend of increasing prevalence as worldwide.Objective and hypotheses: To determine if there is a relationship between adenotonsillectomy and postoperative weight gain in children.Method: The retrospective four year study included 235 children. After applying the exclusion criteri...

Background: Several studies suggested that hypothyroidism, especially subclinical hypothyroidism (SH), is rather a consequence than one of the causes of excessive weight.Objective and Hypotheses: We analyzed if there is a correlation between serum TSH, free thyroxine (FT4) and anthropometric measures in a group of overweight and obese children.Method: The study included 92 children (46 girls and 46 boys), mean age: 11.79...