Bone Abstracts

Background: The baby growing in its mother’s womb needs calcium for skeletal development. Maternal osteoporosis has been attributed to pregnancy in some cases.Presenting problem: A 27-year-old woman in the 7th month of her first pregnancy complained of mid-thoracic back pain after lifting a non-heavy object. The pain remained with differing intensity and was attributed to her pregnancy. After the delivery of a healthy child, the back pain prevented ...

OPTN seems to have an important role in bone metabolism by being part of NfkB pathway. CCDC3 is highly expressed in adipocytes and it seems to be negatively regulated by TNFa, however the mechanisms are not very clear. These genes have a ‘head-to-head’ orientation in the genome, which suggests that they might be regulated by a bidirectional promoter that coordinates the expression of both genes in different tissues. Using bioinformatic tools we analyzed the shared re...

Optineurin (OPTN) is a protein encoded by the OPTN gene. This protein is involved in several cellular mechanisms such as autophagy, NF-κB signaling, cellular morphogenesis, membrane and vesicle trafficking, and transcription activation. Mutations in OPTN have been described in glaucoma, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and other neurological diseases. More recently, a polymorphism in this gene was also identified by a genome wide association study to be ass...

Background: Pycnodysostosis (PDO) is a rare autosomal recessive high bone mass disorder caused by absence of active cathepsin K, which is a lysosomal cysteine protease that plays an important role in degrading the organic matrix of bones. In spite of open fontanelles, raised intracranial pressure has been reported in children with PDO.Presenting problem: We describe a 13-year-old boy with PDO who developed raised intracranial pressure (ICP) which led to ...

Background: Gorham Disease is a rare condition characterised by massive osteolysis. The pathophysiology is related to angio/lymphatic proliferation within bone. No genetic transmission has been identified and onset occurs in patients of all ages. Surgical fixation of the spine may be unsuccessful due to progressive osteolysis of bone surrounding the metalwork, or of the bone graft.Presenting problem: An 11 year-old boy presented with a 2 year history of ...

Objectives: This study analysed prospective associations between two distinct developmental trajectories of objectively-measured physical activity and late adolescent bone parameters (age 17 yr) by exploring the mediating effects of lean soft tissue (LST), a surrogate of muscle mass.Methods: In approximately 349 participants (191 girls) of the Iowa Bone Development Study, physical activity was measured by accelerometry starting at age 5 and continuing at...

Aim: Scoliosis is a common skeletal problem affecting 10–30% of patients with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1). NF1 patients have been shown to have reduced bone mineral density (BMD) which may play a role in the pathogenesis or progression of scoliosis. Our centre is one of four international centres currently evaluating the efficacy of various spinal imaging techniques and BMD as predictors for scoliosis in NF1. In our cohort we measured the lumbar spine (LS) BMD both by ...

Recent studies have demonstrated that the global or osteoblast-specific deletion of neuropeptide Y Y1 receptor (Y1R), as well as the pharmacological blockade of Y1R, leads to pronounced anabolic effects in bone metabolism. This suggests that anti-Y1R drug therapy might have clinical applications for the prevention/recovery of bone loss occurring in osteoporosis. Given the high fracture incidence in this target population, it remained...

Objectives: To describe the incidence of vertebral fractures in steroid-treated children.Methods: Fractures were assessed prospectively each year for 3 years according to the Genant semi-quantitative method. Proportions of children with incident fractures were determined annually over the study period. To examine associations with baseline clinical factors, the 3-year total number of incident fractures was analyzed using multivariable Poisson regression....

Background: Lean and bone mass are heritable traits with high phenotypic correlation (rho=0.44), likely reflecting the underlying mechanical and biochemical interactions between tissues.Aim: Estimate the shared heritability (genetic correlation) of both traits in children and identify genetic determinants displaying pleiotropic effects on lean mass and bone mass accrual.Methods: Participants make part of two prospective po...