ESPE Abstracts

Objectives: Differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) has shown increasing incidence in children and young people <19 years (CYP), and CYP present with more extensive disease than in adults and are at risk of long-term morbidity. A paucity of randomised controlled trials in the field has led to a lack of consensus on how these children should best be managed. These Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group and British Society for Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes commission...

Aim: Western Australia is a state with unique geography and population distribution having only a single tertiary paediatric hospital (Princess Margaret Hospital, PMH in Perth) managing the majority of children and adolescents with fractures in the Emergency Department (ED). Fracture incidence in 0–16 year olds is known to be high and varies between countries with boys having a 1.5 fold higher fracture incidence than girls. There are no specific data for Australia. The ai...

Background: Congenital Hyperinsulinism in Infancy (CHI) is characterised by inappropriate insulin release. We currently attribute hypoglycaemia to β-cell dysfunction because of defects in the ion channel genes ABCC8 or KCNJ11. However, the CHI pancreas is also associated with inappropriate expression of foetal-like transcription factors and enhanced cell proliferation.Hypothesis: As the CHI pancreas bears similarities to the foetal pancreas, we hypo...

Background: Congenital hyperinsulinism in infancy (CHI) is associated with inappropriate insulin release from β-cells. This is causally linked to defects in the ion channel genes ABCC8 and KCNJ11 regulating insulin, but little is known about the metabolic support for sustained insulin exocytosis.Objective and hypotheses: We hypothesised that inappropriate insulin release in CHI would require sustained ATP generation by enhanced mit...

Background: Congenital hyperinsulinism of infancy (CHI) is the most common cause of severe hypoglycaemia in children. Although CHI arises from mutations in KATP channels which lead to inappropriate insulin secretion, CHI it also is associated with marked changes in islet organization.Aims and objectives: Our aim was to investigate the structure and composition of the islet capsule in CHI and age-matched control tissue.Me...

Background: Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is characterised by progressive muscle weakness, resulting from loss of anterior horn cells in the spinal cord and the brain stem nuclei. Survival motor neuron levels (SMN) are reduced due to mutations in the SMN1 gene. SMN function has been implicated in poor bone health. SMA is classified according to age of onset and clinical course accordingly: type 0 (prenatal), type 1 (onset <6 months, severe, never sit unsupported), type 2 (...

Background: Atypical forms of congenital hyperinsulinism in infancy (CHI-A) represent a novel subgroup of patients who present later in the neonatal period; have poor responses to medical intervention; an unremarkable histopathology and no known genetic cause of disease.Objective and hypotheses: To compare the expression profiles of insulin and somatostatin in islets from patients with CHI-A, diffuse CHI (CHI-D) and age-matched control tissue.<p clas...

Background: Congenital hyperinsulinism in infancy (CHI) is a neonatal disorder of uncontrolled insulin release leading to profound hypoglycaemia. In addition to defects in pancreatic β-cell function, we have recently demonstrated that the CHI pancreas is highly proliferative, with rates of proliferation up to 14-fold higher than in age-matched controls.Objective and hypotheses: As patients require pancreatectomy to alleviate hypoglycaemia, our aim w...

Background: Diffuse congenital hyperinsulinism in infancy (CHI-D) mainly arises from mutations in KATP channel genes. In addition, there are also several reports of increased cell proliferation in CHI-D. We hypothesised that the higher rates of proliferation in CHI-D are as a consequence of failure to terminate proliferation in the neonatal period.Objective and hypotheses: To test this we examined the proliferative index (PI) of CHI-D tissue a...

Background: Congenital Hyperinsulinism (CHI) is the most common cause of recurrent and severe hypoglycaemia in childhood and can be broadly categorised into two subtypes. Diffuse CHI (CHI-D) involving all pancreatic cells is usually treated with medications and rarely subtotal pancreatectomy. Focal CHI (CHI-F) involves a solitary insulin hypersecreting pancreatic lesion and can be cured following surgical lesionectomy. Many patients with CHI-F and CHI-D underg...