Final height in a group of untreated children with constitutional growth delay.
We retrospectively evaluated the growth of 41 children with constitutional growth delay followed till adulthood and never treated with growth-promoting therapies. Final height has been correlated with prepubertal height, genetic target and height prediction calculated in both prepuberty and puberty. All patients showed a significant improvement of their height standard deviation score (HSDS) from prepuberty to adulthood, and the great majority of them achieved a final height above the 3rd percentile. Moreover, we found a good correlation between final height and both genetic target and height prediction, even if the latter overestimated final height in 25% of the patients. In conclusion, our data confirm that constitutional growth delay is a normal variant of growth. Therefore, caution should be paid in considering pharmacological treatment of this condition.
Volta
C
C
Department of Paediatrics, University of Parma, Italy.
Ghizzoni
L
L
Buono
T
T
Ferrari
F
F
Virdis
R
R
Bernasconi
S
S
D000293:Adolescent; D000886:Anthropometry; D001827:Body Height; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006130:Growth Disorders; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012189:Retrospective Studies