ESPE Abstracts

Background: Expression of SHOX, a transcription factor implicated in skeletal development, is regulated by the interaction of two promoters, weak, P1 (exon 1) and strong, P2 (exon 2), with at least, seven enhancers. SHOX haploinsufficiency, due to mutations in SHOX or its enhancers, explains ~70% of Leri-Weill dyschondrosteosis (LWD) and ~2.5% idiopathic short stature (ISS) cases whilst the underlying molecular mechanism in the remaining is unknown.<p...

Background: SHOX, located on the pseudoautosomal region 1 (PAR1), encodes a transcriptional factor implicated in human skeletal growth. Alterations in SHOX or its regulatory elements are observed in ~70% of patients with Leri–Weill dyschondrosteosis (LWD), in ~90% with Langer mesomelic dysplasia (LMD) and ~2.5% of patients with idiopathic short stature (ISS). SHOX deletions/duplications are a frequent alteration, with the majority encompassing the entire gene.<p class...

Introduction: Congenital Hyperinsulinism (CHI) is the most frequent cause of severe, persistent hypoglycemia in children. Despite current treatments, patients/caregivers report continued hypoglycemia according to the HI Global Registry 2020 Annual Report. Published literature characterizing hypoglycemia in CHI patients on standard of care (SOC) therapies is lacking.Objective: To quantify the extent of hypoglycemia in CHI...

Background: Heterozygous de novo variants in SAMD9 cause the complex multisystem growth disorder, MIRAGE syndrome. Core features are myelodysplasia, infection, restricted growth, adrenal hypoplasia, genital/gonadal phenotypes, and enteropathy. However, the range of additional associations is expanding and includes disrupted placental development, poor post-natal growth, and other endocrine features. Milder phenotypes are also described, such ...

Introduction: Steroidogenic factor1 (SF1/NR5A1) regulates adrenal and sex development and function. SF1 mutations manifest with a broad phenotype; generally in 46,XY individuals with disorders of sex development (DSD) and in women with ovarian insufficiency. So far, no genotype–phenotype correlation has been found. We hypothesized that the broad phenotype of SF1 mutations may be due to a second hit in a gene with similar function. Liver receptor homolog-1 (LRH1/<...

SARS-CoV- 2 pandemic induced to develop new strategies to abate the distance between patients, families and paediatricians, especially in cases of patients who need long-term therapies. Furthermore, the need to minimize the inflow of children and adolescents affected by chronic diseases into the hospitals induced paediatric endocrinologists to limit visits and to consider a new setting to assist children in treatment with growth hormone (GH). Telemedicine and smart-working cou...

Background: Research has demonstrated that technologies to support diabetes self-management for people living with diabetes can have positive effects on medical and quality of life outcomes. It also shows that there may be an additional burden of wearing and using these technologies. Both diabetes and its treatment can have significant deleterious effect on quality of life, thus it is crucial that the interaction between the technology and the user offers maximum benefit with ...

Background: Inter-individual differences in the metabolism of cortisol have been postulated to emerge during puberty, and might be explained by a complex interplay of genetic and environmental factors. The aim of the current study was to estimate the relative contributions of genetic, shared environmental, and unshared environmental factors on cortisol metabolism in a longitudinal twin cohort assessed at pre-pubertal, mid-pubertal and post-pubertal ages....

Context: Congenital hypothyroidism from thyroid dysgenesis (CHTD) is mainly a sporadic and non-syndromic condition occurring in 1:4,000 live births. In contrast to rare cases of syndromic monogenic CHTD, non-syndromic (NS) CHTD shows low familial recurrence risk (~2%) and low concordance rate between MZ twins, suggesting a two-hit scenario combining post-zygotic events with either a de novo monogenic mutation or incomplete penetrance of polyg...

Background: Minipuberty denotes a period 1–6 months postnatally in boys during which a transient activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis is observed. This early hormone activation can be used diagnostically in patients suspected of pituitary deficiency and differences in sex development. However, its significance for prediction of reproductive function in healthy young men is unknown.Objective: To eval...