ESPE Abstracts

Background: There are limited data available on the efficacy and safety of GH treatment in very young (<30 months) short children, born small for gestational age (SGA).Objectives: To determine the effect of 24 months of GH treatment on body height, BMI, and head growth as well as overall psychomotor development (using the Bayley Scale of Infant Development (BSID-II)) and demonstrate its safety in young (aged between 19 and 29 months) short SGA childr...

Background: Biologic therapy may improve bone health, body composition, and muscle function in children with inflammatory bowel disease but the extent of improvement are unclear.Objective and hypotheses: To evaluate bone and muscle mass in children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) following infliximab (IFX) therapy.Method: Prospective longitudinal study of 19 children (12M), 17 Crohn’s disease (CD), one ulcerative colitis...

Background: Emerging evidence suggests FTO polymorphisms are associated with obesity-related comorbidities including type 2 diabetes (T2DM), hypertension and polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). However association of FTO with other comorbidities such as obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) in paediatric populations is less clear.Objective and hypotheses: To investigate the prevalence of obesity-related comorbidities according to FTO genotype in an obese paedia...

Background: Over the past 20 years there is growing evidence that onset of puberty and changes in body proportions occur at an earlier age, especially in girls. Several studies have suggested this trend is linked to increasing rates of overweight and obese children. However, data on delayed pubertal trends are scant.Objective and hypotheses: To characterize body proportions of children evaluated for pubertal disorders.Method: Retro...

Background: Bi-allelic GHR mutations are classically responsible for Laron syndrome, a severe growth hormone (GH) resistance syndrome. A few GHR missense mutations have also been implicated in mild GH resistance or idiopathic short stature. IGFALS mutations are responsible for recessive or semi-dominant short stature with normal GH provocative test contrasting with extremely low IGF-I levels.Objective and hypotheses: To assess the contribution of GHR and...

Background: Insulin Tolerance tests (ITT) have long been considered the gold standard for dynamic function testing of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Sub-optimal cortisol responses during an ITT in children may be found in children during ITT without a previous clinical suspicion of Adrenal insufficiency (AI). It is not clear what the clinical significance of this is and whether all of these children require formal synacthen testing.<p class=...

Objectives and Study: Insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) regulates fetal and infant growth and is influenced by nutrition during infancy. Breast fed children have lower IGF-I levels than formula fed infants and the reason is partly explained by lower levels of protein and higher level of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in breast milk compared to formula. Environmental factors, such as nutrition, have long-lasting influences on hormone secretion and on future metabolic hea...

Background: Endogenous GH pattern is characterized by high peaks (growth signal) and low trophs (metabolic signal). Exogenous GH is given by subcutaneous injection (scGH-injection) daily at bedtime.Objective and hypotheses: To study the factors influencing intra-/interindividual variation of pharmacokinetics and pattern of scGH-injection in GH treated children.Method: One hundred and twenty eight subjects followed yearly ≤ 8 ...

Background: GH-secretion rates for children ranges in pre/early puberty 0.1–11 U/24 h and during mid-puberty 4–40 U/24 h. This can be used to optimize the rhGH treatment doses in children.Objective and hypotheses: To calculated the bioavailable rhGH in relation to injected dose and compare this to GH-secretory rate in healthy children; and to investigate factors influencing bioavailability.Method: One hundred and twenty e...

Background: It has been reported that short-term increases of the bone formation markers intact amino-terminal propeptide of type I procollagen (PINP), bone-specific alkaline phosphatase (BALP) and osteocalcin display different temporal patterns. In adults, the biphasic model of GH action in bone remodelling shows that GH treatment results initially in an increased bone resorption with a concomitant bone loss, which later on is followed by increased bone formation. In children...