Getting bone health right from the start: new tools for bone mineral density evaluation and determinants of BMD from pregnancy to 12 months of life

Malgorzata Wasniewska; Serafina Perrone; Anna-Mariia Shulhai; Virginia Beretta; Valentina Bianco; Elena Scarpa; Tommaso Aversa; Domenico Corica; Giorgia Pepe; Morabito Letteria Anna; Emanuela Falcone; Maria Street

doi:10.1530/endoabs.110.P230

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Endocrine Abstracts (2025) 110 P230 | DOI: 10.1530/endoabs.110.P230

ECEESPE2025 Poster Presentations Bone and Mineral Metabolism (112 abstracts)

Getting bone health right from the start: new tools for bone mineral density evaluation and determinants of BMD from pregnancy to 12 months of life

Malgorzata Wasniewska ¹ , Serafina Perrone ² , Anna-Mariia Shulhai ² , Virginia Beretta ² , Valentina Bianco ² , Elena Scarpa ² , Tommaso Aversa ¹ , Domenico Corica ¹ , Giorgia Pepe ¹ , Letteria Anna Morabito ¹ , Emanuela Falcone ² & Maria Street ²

Author affiliations

¹University of Messina, Pediatric Unit, University Hospital, Department of Human pathology of Adulthood and Childhood, Messina, Italy; ²University of Parma, Medicine and Surgery, Parma, Italy

JOINT1449

Introduction: Bone health begins with maternal well-being and nutrition, which influences skeletal mass and bone mineral density (BMD) in utero. BMD preservation during skeletal growth is a main goal of primary prevention of osteopenia and osteoporosis in adulthood. Bone health can be determined by fetal programming where oxidative stress, endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), and microRNAs (miRNAs) play an important role. The radiofrequency echographic multi spectrometry (REMS) technique has been extensively used for the measurement of BMD in adults. This project aims to evaluate skeletal status from the perinatal period up to 12 months of life, assessing the feasibility of REMS in newborns, and to explore new associations regarding oxidative stress, EDCs, and miRNAs between mother-infant dyads and BMD.

Methods: 200 mother-infant dyads were enrolled in this ongoing prospective multicenter longitudinal study. We are assessing BMD of the proximal femur with REMS technology in mothers, fetuses, newborns, and infants at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months of life. Blood and urine samples have been collected for the assessment of oxidative stress, miRNAs, and EDCs, respectively. The creation of a reference database, including 100 fetuses/newborns, was required to apply REMS technology for the first time in this population.

Results: Preliminary data from the REMS reference database showed that the specific settings for acquiring structures located between 10- and 15-mm depth appeared suitable for children from 0 to 1 month but not for babies aged 3 months. Therefore, the final adopted configuration of REMS for the evaluation of children from 0 to 3 months included the following: BeamFormer: Echo Blaster 128 Rev. C; Linear Probe 40 mm: HL9. 0/40/128Z-4; Focus: Dynamic Focus: No; Focus Number: 1; Focus Set 4; Focus Depth: 18 mm (Coverage: 0–25 mm); Depth: Fixed at 60 mm; Frequency: 5 MHz; Power: 54%; Gain: 58%.

Conclusion: REMS technology seems to be applicable for the assessment of BMD in infants. Further investigations will be performed to develop settings for children up to 1 year, by defining age-appropriate reference data, and to examine associations of oxidative stress, EDC exposure, and expression levels of miRNAs in cord serum with BMD obtained by REMS.