IMPE Abstracts

Introduction: Stress levels and/or changes in lifestyle resulting from covid-19 lockdown imposed on the pediatric population, could be determinant factors in the incidence of ICPP. Objective: To describe changes in the incidence of ICPP in a selected population and to compare these cases with lockdown exposed controls.

Materials and methods: ICPP girls who started GnRH analogue (GnRHa) treatment after lockdown, belonging to a single center and the same health coverage system, were considered cases. Incidence was analyzed between 2010-2021 using pharmacy electronic records (girls who start treatment for ICPP / total of girls between 6 and 9 years old under same health coverage). A phone survey was carried out during January 2022. It included mothers of ICPP girls under GnRHa between June 2020 and May 2021 (group 1, n=27, mean 8.07 years) and a cohort of two randomly chosen control girls for each case who did not receive treatment and did not have pubertal clinical changes during the same period (group 2, n=56, mean 8.06 years).

Results: 1) annual incidence (cases/1000) was for each year between: 2010 and 2021: 2.2; 1.7; 1.25; 2.5;2.0; 2.5; 1.6; 1.7; 3.8; 4.0; 6.4; 15.3 respectively

Case-control studies: There were no differences between cases and controls in BMI (17.8 vs 17.7kg/m2), electronic device use (5.09 vs 5.05 hs/d), use of plastic containers to heat food (59.2 vs 49.8 %), hours of physical activity (1.2 vs 1.5 hs/d), increase in sleeping hours (0.11 vs 0.51 hs/d) or familiar environment scale (7.59 vs 7.54). Differences were found in maternal menarche age (12.2 vs 13.1 years) and in family history of precocious puberty (26.9 vs 7.6 %).

Conclusions: Our study shows a great increase in the incidence of ICPP girls treated during lockdown, but this increase reached some significance even in the preceding year. Exposure to environmental triggers determined by lockdown could have greater relevance only in genetically predisposed populations.