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Objective: The worldwide trend towards obesity in childhood is also observed in the Netherlands and one of the consequences may be type 2 diabetes. In this study, we assessed the number of children with type 2 diabetes, diagnosed by paediatricians, in the Netherlands.

Methods: In 2003 and 2004 the Dutch Paediatric Surveillance Unit, a nationwide paediatric register, was used to assess new cases of diabetes mellitus. Data on socio-demographic and clinical characteristics were collected by means of a questionnaire. A second questionnaire was sent to the reporting paediatrician if the diagnosis was inconclusive or if the diagnosis was type 1 diabetes in combination with overweight or obesity, according to international criteria.

Results: During the 24 months of registration, the paediatricians reported 1142 new cases of diabetes, 943 of which were eligible for analysis. Initially, 14 patients (1.5%) were reported with type 2 diabetes. Only seven of these patients were classified as type 2 diabetes according to the ADA criteria, as information on C-peptides or antibodies was often missing. Based on clinical characteristics, the other seven patients were very likely to have type 2 diabetes. After the second questionnaire, six more patients met the ADA criteria and two were very likely to have type 2 diabetes. Most of the patients were female (95%), 14% were of Turkish and 18% of Moroccan origin.

Conclusion: This study shows a discrepancy between the number of patients with type 2 diabetes diagnosed by paediatricians in daily practice and diagnosed according to the ADA criteria. Moreover, a considerable amount of reported patients were misclassified. Finally, 2.4% patients were classified as (very likely) type 2 diabetes. The development of programmes and protocols for prevention, diagnosis and classification applicable in daily practice is warranted.

The mode of treatment best for undescended testes is controversial, and local traditions often override knowledge gained from randomized controlled studies. In order to reach a consensus within the Nordic countries on the current state-of-the-art of treatment, a group of specialists in testicular physiology, paediatric surgery/urology, endocrinology, andrology, pathology and anaesthesiology from all the Nordic countries met for 2 days. Before the meeting, reviews of the literature had been prepared by the participants. Judging from published meta-analyses, hormonal treatment has low efficacy. Although 15–20% of retained testes descend during hormonal treatment, one-fifth of these re-ascend later on. Also, treatment with human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) may be harmful to future spermatogenesis through increased apoptosis of germ cells. Orchiopexy, on the contrary, results in about 95% anatomical success, with a low (about 1%) risk of complications. The optimal time for orchiopexy has also been debated. However, a recent randomized controlled study shows that surgery at 9 months of age is followed by a better post-operative growth of the testes than surgery at 3 years, which supports previous arguments for early surgery. The unanimous conclusion of the group was that surgery is generally the preferred mode of treatment, rather than hCG or GnRH treatments. Orchiopexy should be performed between 6 and 12 months of age, or soon after diagnosis, if that occurs later. If a testis is found to be undescended at any age after 6 months, the patient should be referred for surgery. Referral should be to paediatric rather than general surgeons/urologists if the boy is less than 1 year old, if he has bilateral or non-palpable testes, or if he has got relapse of cryptorchidism.

Objective: Evaluation of the frequency of Graves’ ophthalmopathy (GO) and its management in children and adolescents up to 18 years old with Graves’ hyperthyroidism.

Study design: This was a questionnaire study (QS) among members of the European Thyroid Association and the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology. Approximately 300 QS were sent to members with electronic addresses and 110 QS were returned from 25 countries: 52 respondents said they had no experience with Graves’ disease in this age group, but 67 respondents (23 paediatric and 44 adult endocrinologists) completed the QS.

Results: Out of 1963 patients with juvenile Graves’ hyperthyroidism seen by respondents in the last 10 years, 641 (33%) had GO; about one-third of GO cases were ≤10 years old, and two-thirds were 11–18 years old. The prevalences of GO among juvenile Graves’ hyperthyroidism were 36.6, 27.3 and 25.9% in countries in which the smoking prevalence among teenagers was ≥25, 20–25 and <20% respectively (P < 0.0001 by χ² test). When confronted with the standard case of a 13-year-old girl with Graves’ hyperthyroidism and moderately severe active GO, the diagnostic approach included on average 4.9 biochemical tests (TSH, free thyroxine (FT₄) and TSH.R-Ab, 100-88% of respondents) and 2.4 specific investigations (thyroid ultrasound by 69%, orthopsy/visual fields/visual acuity by 64% and orbital magnetic resonance imaging or computed tomography by 63%). Antithyroid drugs were the treatment of choice for 94% of respondents; 70% recommended a wait-and-see policy and 28% corticosteroids for the co-existing GO. In variants of the standard case, a younger age did not affect therapeutic approach very much. Recurrent hyperthyroidism would still be treated with antithyroid drugs by 66%, and with ¹³¹I by 25%. Worsening of GO or active GO when euthyroid would convince about two-thirds of respondents to initiate treatment of GO, preferably with steroids.

Conclusion: GO occurs in 33% of patients with juvenile Graves’ hyperthyroidism; its prevalence is higher in countries with a higher prevalence of smoking among teenagers. The diagnostic approach to the standard case of a 13-year-old with Graves’ hyperthyroidism and moderately severe active GO involves on average five biochemical tests; thyroid as well as orbital imaging is done in 84% of cases. Antithyroid drugs remain the treatment of choice for 94% of respondents, and even so in case of recurrences (66%). For GO, 70% recommend a wait-and-see policy; intervention, preferably with steroids, is advocated by two-thirds of respondents in cases of worsening or still-active eye disease despite euthyroidism.

Childhood obesity is a significant health problem that has reached epidemic proportions around the world and is associated with several metabolic and cardiovascular complications. Insulin resistance is a common feature of childhood obesity and is considered to be an important link between adiposity and the associated risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Insulin resistance is also a key component of the metabolic syndrome, and its prevalence in the paediatric population is increasing, particularly among obese children and adolescents. Several factors are implicated in the pathogenesis of obesity-related insulin resistance, such as increased free fatty acids and many hormones and cytokines released by adipose tissue.

Valid and reliable methods are essential to assess the presence and the extent of insulin resistance, the associated risk factors and the effect of pharmacological and lifestyle interventions. The two most common tests to assess insulin resistance are the hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp and the frequently sampled i.v. glucose tolerance test utilizing the minimal model. However, both these tests are not easily accomplished, are time consuming, expensive and invasive. Simpler methods to assess insulin resistance based on surrogate markers derived from an oral glucose tolerance test or from fasting insulin and glucose levels have been validated in children and adolescents and widely used.

Given the strong association between obesity, insulin resistance and the development of metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease, prevention and treatment of childhood obesity appear to be essential to prevent the development of insulin resistance and the associated complications.

Bone densitometry is currently one of the mainstays in the evaluation of systemic bone diseases in adults and is also increasingly used to assess primary or secondary bone disorders in children and adolescents. The purpose of carrying out densitometric studies in such circumstances is to measure the densitometric indicators of bone stability. Following procedures which were established for diagnosing adult osteoporosis, a decrease in densitometric surrogates of bone stability is usually interpreted as indicating increased fracture risk. The most basic densitometric parameter is bone mineral content (BMC), which can be measured with most densitometric techniques. BMC is either defined as the mass of mineral contained in an entire bone or as the mass of mineral per unit bone length. While mineral mass can be expected to be a good surrogate for bone stability, BMC is obviously a size-dependent parameter, since small bones weigh less than big bones. This is a drawback in paediatric use, since many children and adolescents who are examined by densitometry suffer from chronic disorders and are small-for-age. Short children will have a lower BMC than their healthy age-matched peers, even if their (smaller) bones are otherwise completely normal.