ESPE Abstracts

Homozygous mutation of Insulin receptor (INS-R) gene cause an extremely rare disease called Leprechaunism, and induce intrauterine growth restriction with poor postnatal growth, hyperinsulinemia, postprandial hyperglycaemia, pre-prandial hypoglycaemia, typical facies, lack of subcutaneous fat, thick skin, hypertrichosis, macrogenitosomia in males. The survival is severely compromised in these patients. Treatment with diazoxide could ameliorate glycaemic control, however these ...

Congenital hypothyroidism (CH) occurs in approximately 1:2000–1:3000 newborns in Italy. Lowering of the TSH cut-off was the most important factor contributing to the increase of CH incidence in Italy. The aim of this study is the determination of the prevalence of CH in northwest Sicily, evaluated by the single screening centre of the Children Hospital ‘G. Di Cristina’, ARNAS, Palermo. From January 2013 to December 2017, 79.699 newborns were screened testing TSH...

Background: Precocious puberty is defined as the development of secondary sexual characteristics before the age of 8 years in girls and 9 years in boys. This condition results from a constant and complex interplay between predisposing genes and environmental factors. To date, the molecular analysis are all focused on reproductive-endocrine disorders such as Kallmann syndrome and hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, while the genetic bases of pubertal timing are still unclear.<p ...

Background: 3-M syndrome is an autosomal recessive primordial growth disorder characterized by severe prenatal and postnatal growth retardation, normal mental development, unusual facial features and skeletal abnormalities. Mutations in the CUL7, OBSL1 and CCDC8 genes are responsible for this syndrome. In literature a modest response to GH treatment in 3M children is reported without a significant improvement in the final height, suggesting a picture...

Background: The 6-min walk test (6MWT) is a simple, accurate and safe method to measure functional exercise capacity. The 6MWT is increasingly used in children to predict morbidity and mortality from cardiopulmonary disease, to assess functional capacity and measure disease progression in chronic childhood conditions such as muscular dystrophy.Objective and hypotheses: To provide smooth reference curves for the 6-min walk distance (6MWD) in healthy child...

Background: There is wide geographic variation in the frequency of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) at onset of diabetes from ~15–70% in Europe and North America.Objective and hypotheses: To evaluate the frequency of DKA at the onset of type 1 diabetes (T1D) in the paediatric population seen in the Department of Pediatric Diabetology of Turin (Italy) from 1/1/2008 to 31/12/2013.Method: Data (venous pH and HCO3, season at the onset)...

SHOX deficiency causes a spectrum of clinical phenotypes related to skeletal dysplasia and short stature, including Léri-Weill dyschondrosteosis, Langer mesomelic dysplasia, Turner syndrome, and idiopathic short stature. SHOX controls chondrocyte proliferation and differentiation, bone maturation, cellular growth arrest and apoptosis via transcriptional regulation of its direct target genes NPPB, FGFR3, and CTGF. However, our u...

Three patients from two unrelated families in Malta; one consanguineous (siblings: Patient 1, male and Patient 2, female) and one non-consanguineous (Patient 3, male), manifested hypogonadotropic hypogonadism with delayed puberty, intellectual disability, scoliosis, and ataxia with cerebellar hypoplasia on MRI. GnRH tests revealed low peak LH and FSH concentrations in the patients: Patient 1; LH 2.3 IU/L, FSH 4.4 IU/L (14.3y), Patient 2; LH 3.6 IU/L, FSH 6.4 IU/L (12.5y), Pati...

Background: Some IGFALS variants have been reported in more than one ALS-deficient family raising the question whether they originated from a single common ancestor allele (founder effect) or alternatively, as independent mutational events (hot spot). Since c.103dupG (p.E35Gfs*17) is located in a stretch of five consecutive guanine residues, where both G-duplication and deletion have been described in several families, we speculate that this region could be a hot spot...

Background: Congenital hypothyroidism (CH) is the most common endocrine disorder in neonates and is predominantly caused by developmental abnormalities known as thyroid dysgenesis (TD). Several transcription factors have been described in its aetiology, but defects in the known genes only account for a small proportion of cases.Methods: To identify novel genes involved in TD, we performed exome sequencing in 7 unrelated ...