Exogenous growth hormone: a new therapy for dilated cardiomyopathy.
Heart failure is an epidemic within the United States and, despite current medical therapy, carries a high mortality rate. Growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor-1 have known direct effects on the cardiovascular system. Improvement in contractility, reduction in wall stress, and increase in cardiac performance have been noted in animal experiments. Furthermore, preliminary data from human trials are encouraging. This report outlines the biology of growth hormone, the experimental and human data to support clinical trials of growth hormone treatment, and the outcome of trials reported to date.
Moran
AM
Department of Cardiology, Children's Hospital, 300 Longwood Avenue, 02115, Boston, MA, USA
Colan
SD
Majzoub
JA
Newburger
JW