ESPE Abstracts

Background: The adaptative increase of serum thyrotropin (TSH) levels in obese subjects may affect the metabolic regulation of body tissues and thus promote an unfavorable cardiometabolic profile.Aim: To investigate the association between serum TSH, free thyroxine (FT4) and cardiometabolic risk factors in euthyroid obese children and adolescents.Material and Methods: Four hundred ninety-one Caucas...

The pathogenetic role of genetic factors in congenital hypothyroidism (CH) is now widely known. The constant evolution of diagnostic methods in the field of medical genetics provides the opportunity to obtain an etiological diagnosis in CH patients with genetic defects in candidate genes. We performed genetic analysis by Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) of 18 candidate genes (DUOX2, DUOXA2, FOXE1, GLIS3, IGSF1, IYD, NKX2-1, NKX2-5, PAX8, SLC16A2, SLC26A4, SLC5A5, TG, THRA,...

Introduction: Childhood obesity is associated with several complications, involving many systems. The prevalence of respiratory problems, such as obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS), is higher in obese children and adolescents. In fact, OSAS affects 13–59% of obese children and the severity is strongly associated with weight excess. Although overnight pulse oximetry (PO) can be used for diagnosing OSAS, a complete night polysomnography (PSG), which re...

Introduction: Early identification of classic 21OH-Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (21OH-CAH) through newborn screening (NBS) is crucial to prevent adrenal crises, especially in males. Today 21 OH-CAH NBS is performed in 5/21 regions of Italy. This study aims to report the results of 21OH-CAH NBS in Italy from 2006 to 2019.Methods: All patients underwent a dried blood spot (DBS) test for 17OH-progesterone (17OHP) within t...

Background: Distal chromosome 16 duplication syndrome, also known as 16q partial trisomy, is a very rare genetic disorder. Smaller chromosomal copy number variants (CNVs) within the 16q region create partial trisomies, which occur less frequently than full trisomy 16q. Trisomy 16q is generally associated with a multisystemic phenotype including intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), brain and cardiac defects, intellectual disability and an increased risk of b...

Introduction: Familial male-limited precocious puberty (or testotoxicosis) is a very rare genetic disorder with autosomal dominant transmission that causes gonadotropin-independent precocious puberty due to mutations activating the lutropin-chorionic gonadotropin receptor (LHCGR), which lead to elevated testosterone levels and suppressed gonadotropins. The age of onset is between 2-5 years essentially with penis and testes enlargement, linear growth accelerati...

Introduction: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) affects up to 40% of children and adolescents with obesity and the risk for OSA is directly correlated with obesity severity. Several studies have pointed out that OSA per se might lead to metabolic derangement including worsening of insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, and hepatic steatosis. However, the pathophysiologic mechanisms underpinning these associations remain unclear, especially in pediatric groups. The mai...

Background: Management of subclinical hypothyroidism (SH) in infancy is still controversial. According to the European Guidelines for Congenital Hypothyroidism (CH), in case of TSH levels between 6 and 20 µUI/ml, both levothyroxine (L-T4) therapy and a wait-and-see approach can be considered.Aim: to describe the evolution of SH diagnosed in newborns recalled by neonatal screening (TSH values ≥7µUI/ml)....

Objectives: Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a complex multisystem disorder due to loss of expression of paternally derived genes in the PWS critical region on chromosome 15q11-q13. The majority of the cases are due to the deletion of this region (del15), while 20–30% are caused by a maternal uniparental disomy of chromosome 15 (UPD15). The clinical picture is characterized by neonatal hypotonia and feeding difficulties in early infancy, early development of hyperphagia wit...

Background: Patients born small for gestational age (SGA) with additional syndromic features to short stature are likely to present with genetic causes.Aim: To perform a clinical and genetic-molecular investigation of a group of syndromic SGA patients without catch-up growth.Methods: We selected 118 patients born SGA [birth weight and/or length standard deviation score (SDS) ≤−2 for gestational age] without catch-up gro...