Endocrine Abstracts

Background: The glucagon tolerance test (GTT) is used to diagnose growth hormone deficiency (GHD) in younger children or in patients where the insulin tolerance test is contraindicated. We assessed GTTs carried out over five years in a tertiary paediatric centre to assess growth hormone (GH) and cortisol axes. The aim was to assess at which time points the GH peak was observed, and assess whether any predictive value is gained from demographics or IGF-1....

GH deficiency is recognised as a complication of adult traumatic brain injury (TBI) but there are conflicting data in children possibly due to the influences such as age at TBI, trauma mechanism but also by timing, method and criteria of hormonal evaluation.Objectives: To assess the long-term impact of TBI on the GH–IGF1 axis following TBI in childhood.Patients: Longitudinal study of 28 participants with a history of moderate/...

Background: Insulin tolerance test (ITT) is the gold-standard investigation in children with suspected growth hormone deficiency (GHD). Despite their benefits, ITTs are resource intensive, potentially dangerous and can result in unnecessary treatment due to false positive results in children that are at low risk for GHD.Methods: Retrospective analysis of all paediatric patients undergoing an ITT in two tertiary hospitals in the UK (centre A between 2017-...

Objectives: To determine long-term functional outcome following traumatic brain injury (TBI) in childhood.Patients: Longitudinal study of 49 participants with TBI (21 mild, 28 moderate/severe TBI) and 16 healthy controls matched for age, gender and socioeconomic status. Age at TBI (median (range)) 11.8 (1–16) years; 17 were prepubertal, 16 peripubertal, 16 postpubertal. Age at study 19.7 (10–26) years, time post TBI 8.6 (5.8–10.8) years. A...

Background: The ITT has been said to be the gold standard for diagnosing GH deficiency (GHD) for 50 years. The original 0, 20, 30, 60, 90 and 120 min time points are still used in many but a survey of current UK paediatric ITT protocols identified several variations.Objective and hypotheses: To identify optimal GH sampling time points to avoid over diagnosis of GHD.Methods: Results of 502 paediatric ITTs using two different samplin...