ESPE Abstracts

Background: Type 1 diabetes may have an influence on concentration, attention and behaviour. These effects are relevant, as they may affect school performance and later career options for paediatric diabetes patients.Objective and hypotheses: This study examined attention, concentration and behavioural difficulties in diabetic children aged 5–13 years and their association with hypoglycaemic episodes and HbA1c.Method: 48 child...

Background: In mammals, maternal glucocorticoids are transmitted through breast milk, particularly under stressful circumstances. In humans, it is unclear whether milk cortisol levels are dependent on stressful perinatal circumstances, such as preterm birth.Objective and hypotheses: Our aim was to compare cortisol concentrations in breast milk of mothers of very preterm infants (GA <32 weeks) to breast milk cortisol concentrations of mothers of full-...

Background: Short stature has been associated with a reduction in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and more problem behavior in children and adults. In adolescents who were treated with growth hormone (GH) because of persistent short stature after being born SGA, an increase in HRQoL and decrease in behavioral problems was seen during or right after cessation of GH-treatment. However, long-term data, to analyze if these positive effects remain many years...

Introduction: Acromegaly is a rare disorder, developed by overproduction of growth hormone (GH) and insulin-growth factor 1 (IGF-1), in most cases based on a pituitary adenoma. The increased IGF-1 and GH levels lead to the growth of acres and organs as well as metabolic changes. When manifesting before epiphyseal closure, a giant growth develops.Case Report: A Ukrainian girl presented at the age of 14 years with enlargem...

Introduction: Growth hormone (GH) treatment is essential for growth in children with GH deficiency. Also short children born small for gestational age (SGA), and children with syndromes like Turner Syndrome (TS), Noonan Syndrome (NS) and Silver Russel Syndrome (SRS) can benefit from GH treatment. For children with needle anxiety GH delivered by a jet device can be a solution for the daily subcutaneous treatment for many years. In 2021, a global recall of the o...

Background: Congenital hypothyroidism (CH) is a common and preventable cause of mental retardation in children, and is detected using dried blood spots in many neonatal screening programs. Upon suspicion of CH, plasma free thyroxine (FT4) and thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) concentrations are measured. CH can be of thyroidal or central origin (CH-T and CH-C, respectively). While CH-T diagnosis is based on an elevated plasma TSH in combination with a low FT4,...

Background: Short stature caused by point mutations or deletions of the short stature homeobox (SHOX) gene (SHOX haploinsufficiency, SHI) is a registered indication for growth hormone (GH) treatment. Patients with a SHOX enhancer deletion (SED) have a similar phenotype, but their response to GH is unknown. It is uncertain if duplications of SHOX or its enhancer (SDUP) can cause short stature.Objective and hypotheses: To describe the clinical characterist...

Background: Paediatric obesity is a multifactorial disease characterized by an imbalance between energy intake and expenditure. In rare cases, obesity is caused by underlying medical disorders arising from disruptions in the leptin-melanocortin pathway, which regulates satiety and energy expenditure.Aim: To investigate resting energy expenditure (REE) in relation to body composition in children and adolescents with sever...

Introduction: Patients carrying homozygous IGF1 loss-of-function mutations are extremely rare and show severe pre- and postnatal growth failure, microcephaly, developmental delay, retrognathia and sensorineural deafness. Heterozygous variants in IGF1 appear to be more common in short stature, but only few cases have been reported in detail. Therefore, clinical features and growth response to recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) therapy are...

Introduction: Children with hypothalamic dysfunction, e.g. due to a genetic or acquired cause such as suprasellar tumours, often suffer from hyperphagia and/or decreased resting energy expenditure (REE). This process induces uncontrollable weight gain, resulting in severe hypothalamic obesity (HO). No effective treatment is available yet for HO. Amphetamines are psychostimulants that are known for their appetite reducing and REE stimulating side effects. Here,...