ESPE Abstracts

Introduction: Noonan syndrome (NS) is a relative frequent genetic disorder, mainly characterized by dysmorphic face features, congenital heart defects and short stature. Though delayed pubertal development has been described in both sexes, the physiopathological root remains unclear. This study aims at characterizing puberty development in Noonan syndrome.Materials and Methods: The study population included 111 individuals with a molecul...

Objective: To evaluate the response to recombinant human GH (rhGH) treatment in NS children with short stature and previously identified mutations in the RAS/MAPK pathway genes.Methods: 23 patients with NS (17 males; 19 PTPN11, 3 RAF1 e 1 SHOC2) were daily treated with rhGH (mean rhGH dose of 47 μg/kg per day). The main outcome measures were 1st year growth velocity, change in height SDS (Noonan syndrome specifi...

Background: Noonan syndrome (NS) is a rare genetic disease characterized by facial dysmorphism, short stature, heart defects, chest deformities, and variable developmental delay/learning disabilities. Almost 80% of patients have a mutation in the genes encoding components of the RAS/MAPK pathway. Puberty was described as delayed in NS patients, but few studies are focusing on this subject and genotype-phenotype correlations so far.<s...

Background: Noonan syndrome (NS) is a frequent autosomal dominant disorder characterized by facial dysmorphisms, heart defects, short stature and learning disabilities. It is caused by mutations in genes within the RAS/MAPK signaling pathway, thus called RASopathies. The RAS/MAPK pathway can also impact the signal transduction of hormones involved in body weight, carbohydrate, and lipid metabolism features scarcely studied only in animal models. This study aimed to describe me...

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...

Background: Noonan Syndrome (NS) can overlap clinically and biochemically with growth hormone insensitivity [GHI; short stature (SS), low IGF-I and normal/elevated GH levels]. Mutations in multiple genes regulating RAS/MAPK pathway have been identified in NS including LZTR1 variants. Function of LZTR1 is poorly understood and its role in growth retardation is unknown.Objectives: To functionally characte...

Background: Loss of function mutations in SGPL1, a key component of sphingolipid metabolism, are associated with accumulation of sphingolipid intermediates giving rise to a multisystemic disease incorporating primary adrenal insufficiency (PAI) and progressive renal and neurological disease. Sphingolipids are implicated in mitochondrial apoptosis via induction of mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization, cytosolic release of inter-membranal cytochrome c and activ...

Introduction: Growth velocity is reduced in patients with GH deficiency and this may result in an increase in Body Mass Index (BMI). Treatment performed with Growth Hormone (GH) while accelerating growth velocity, might reduce BMI. The objective of this study was to evaluate BMI in patients with GHD at diagnosis, 1 y and 2 y after started treatment with GH and to compare if there is difference between the BMI of the patients with and without pituitary abnormalities.<p clas...

Background: The Adrenocortical Neoplasm (ACN) is a rare condition in childhood (0,3 cases/1000000). In paediatric age, ACN at stage 1 is treated by complete adrenalectomy, while at stages 2 and 3 surgery is followed by adjuvant treatment with Mitotane (M). Chemotherapy is required in metastatic cases (stage 4).Objective and hypotheses: M is an adrenal cytotoxic agent which has both adrenolytic action on ACN cells and inhibition on steroid hormone synthes...

Background: A high proliferative status of thyroid follicular cells and goiter were observed in mutants mice with Pten−/− or Dream overexpression. In humans, patients with Cowden disease have goiters or other thyroid abnormalities associated with germ-line PTEN mutations.Objective and Hypotheses: The aim of this study was to investigate the tissue expression of PTEN and DREAM, as well as germ-line ...