ESPE Abstracts

Background and Aim: Recombinant growth hormone (GH) is reimbursed for the treatment of short stature (<-2.5 Z-score) in children born small for gestational age (SGA) without postnatal growth, aged ≥ 4 years with a height Z-score >1 below mid-parental height (MPH). We wanted to determine the current GH prescribing practices by pediatric endocrinologists (PE) for SGA related short stature and document the percentages of treated children at risk for...

Background: Long-term outcome studies on bilateral testicular regression (BTR) are currently lacking, hampering counseling of patients and parents. Although a vascular origin was initially reported, recent studies revealed a genetic origin in a subset of patients (i.e. DHX37 gene variants). How this relates to patient outcomes remains unclear.Methods: Thirty-five patients with BTR were recruited in eight Belgian centers ...

Growth response to daily GH treatment can be predicted using pre-treatment gene expression profiles.1 Once-weekly GH treatment potentially reduces the burden of daily injections2 and thus may be a major advancement in care for patients with GHD, vs standard, daily GH treatment. Here we investigate the prediction of first-year growth response based on pre-treatment blood transcriptome in children with GHD undergoing treatment with daily or once-weekly GH. ...

Background: Alterations of pre- and early postnatal growth can have long lasting impact on adult height, body composition and metabolic health throughout life. In monozygotic twins discordant for prenatal growth due to twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), we previously demonstrated lower cord blood IGF-I concentrations and earlier pubertal maturation, indicative of prenatal programming of endocrine systems, to be linked to reduced final height of the form...

Introduction: Abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) is subdivided into two depots by the fascia of Scarpa. The deep SAT (dSAT) and superficial SAT (sSAT) are morphologically and metabolically distinct, with dSAT reportedly being more similar to visceral adipose tissue (VAT) in terms of elevating the risk for obesity-related complications. Conversely, sSAT appears to be more similar to lower-body SAT. The relationship between dSAT and metabolic disease ha...

Background: Severe primary insulin-like growth factor-1 deficiency (SPIGFD) is a rare condition for which replacement therapy with recombinant human insulin-like growth factor-1 (rhIGF 1; mecasermin [Increlex®]) is approved for treatment in Europe and the USA. SPIGFD is defined as a height standard deviation score (HtSDS) ≤-3, and baseline IGF-1 <2.5th percentile (European indication) or ≤-3 SDS (USA indication) for age and gender, desp...

Introduction: Bone Health Index (BHI) determined by measurement of cortical thickness of metacarpalia II-IV in x-rays of the left hand represents a method to estimate bone health in children. Aim of this study was to investigate changes of BHI SDS in the course of growth hormone (GH) treatment.Method: 256 consecutive children with short stature (isolated GH deficiency (IGHD) n = 121, multiple pituitary hormone deficiency...

Background: Cardiometabolic (CM) risk is linked to being small for gestational age (SGA, birthweight <-2SDS). Fetal growth restriction (FGR) may not result in SGA. We focused on potential CM risk in children born following pregnancies at higher risk for FGR.Aims: To identify associations between fetal and childhood weight trajectory quartiles and CM risk markers. 2.To define molecular pathways potentially associated w...

Congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI) is a complex heterogeneous disease affecting 1 in 40.000 newborns. Recurrent hypoketotic hypoglycaemia led to permanent mental and motor disabilities in 30-40% of children. Histologically three types had been differentiated: focal, diffuse and atypical. Up to now, only focal-type CHI can be permanently cured by focus removal. Focal-type CHI is characterized by paternal inherited mutation of ABCC8 or KCNJ11 mutations. Therefore mutation anal...

Background: Children born SGA are known to develop cardiometabolic conditions in adulthood1. Nothing is known about the relationship of the transcriptome (gene expression) and epigenome (DNA methylation) to birth size and the future development of cardiometabolic disease.Aim: To identify, I) differences and functional links between epigenome age-7years, transcriptome age-9years associated and ...