ESPE Abstracts

Case Report: A 5-month-old girl born to first-cousin parents was referred to endocrinology for evaluation following two hospitalizations for vomiting and dehydration with severe hyponatremia and hyperkalemia. She had a history of recurrent emesis and poor weight gain, with a reportedly normal abdominal and renal ultrasound.Initial evaluation showed hyponatremia with elevated renin 170 ng/ml/hr (normal 2-37 ng/ml/hr) and aldosterone 275 n...

Key words: Descriptive study, short stature, Growth Hormone deficiency, Growth Hormone analogue, Lebanon, NDS-UMC, Byblos, single center experience.Background: There is a lack of national data concerning growth hormone deficiency treatment in Lebanon. The aim of this study is to describe the height gained under growth hormone therapy of 39 patients diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency (GHD).<st...

A 16 year old boy initially presented with short stature at age 6, with height <0.4th centile (HSDS -2.78). Bone age was 1.9 years delayed, and growth hormone deficiency was diagnosed after 2 stimulation tests. The rest of his pituitary function was normal. He never had pituitary imaging. Growth hormone treatment was started, and he had an excellent growth response with HSDS improving to -1.57 by 10 years. The growth hormone treatment was discontinued when the family reloca...

Introduction: Congenital lipoid adrenal hyperplasia (lipoid CAH), is a rare subtypes of adrenal hyperplasia yet the most fatal form, which seriously disrupts adrenal and gonadal steroidogenesis by a defect in the conversion of cholesterol to pregnenolone. Affected patients show salt loss from impaired mineralocorticoid and glucocorticoid synthesis. The defect in lipoid CAH is mainly in the steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (StAR), which promotes entry of ...

Introduction: Zinc α2-glycoprotein (ZAG) is a single-chain polypeptide with molecular weight of 40-kDa, and is secreted from various tissues. It plays several imperative functions in the human body, such as lipid mobilization and immunoregulation. ZAG enhances lipolysis and is involved in reduction of fatty acids in adipose tissues. ZAG has High sequence similarity to MHC-I molecules and is suggested to be a truncated secretory MHC-I–like protein. ...

Introduction: Small size at birth is only a proxy for the pathological process of intrauterine growth restriction.Aim: To study the effect of different birth weights on postnatal growth.Method: We studied the linear growth of 59 infants who were born preterm (GA = 33.5 +/- 2.2 weeks) with birth weight >1.5 < 2.5 kg) for two years. They were classified at birth into two groups...

Suboptimal head growth in utero and in early neonatal life may affect linear growth and weight gain during infancy. We studied linear growth and weight gain of 56 preterms (GA = 33.5 +/- 2.2 weeks) with birth weight >1.5 < 2.5 kg) for two years. They were classified at birth into two groups (group 1 with HCZ <-1) (relatively small head for GA) (35 +/- 2 weeks) and group 2 with HCZ > -1 (GA = 33 +/- 1.7 weeks)Results: Preterm ...

Introduction: Obesity development and subsequent white adipose tissue (WAT) expansion is often accompanied by WAT fibrosis which leads to adipocyte dysfunction. Fibrosis is a condition in which extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins are increased aberrantly and results in immune cell infiltration, cytokine production and insulin resistance. Visfatin is an adipokine that is implicated in obesity and its metabolic consequences; however, its role in WAT fibrosis has...

We analyzed the effect of having different BMI and BMI SDS, if any, on linear growth (HtSDS) in a cohort of prepubertal children (n = 102) in different BMI categories. In addition, we studied the effect of weight changes on linear growth in a randomly selected group of underweight children after nutritional rehabilitation (NR).Subjects and Methods: All prepubertal children between 1 and 9 years presented to the general pediatric clin...

Background: Intussusception is a life-threatening illness, with incompletely understood etiology, although some predisposing factors are known. Intussusception frequently occurs in well-nourished chubby infants.Aims We aimed to determine whether patients presenting with intussusception have a high prevalence of obesity.Patients and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted ...