Spontaneous growth in growth hormone deficiency from birth until 7 years of age: development of disease-specific growth curves.
BACKGROUND
Little is known about spontaneous growth of growth hormone (GH)-deficient children during infancy and childhood.


METHODS
Retrospectively, we calculated disease-specific pretreatment percentiles for height, weight, BMI and growth velocity of 113 GH-deficient boys and 41 GH-deficient girls from birth until 7 years of age, by mean and standard deviation.


RESULTS
Infants with idiopathic GH deficiency (GHD) grow in disease-specific percentile channels. There is a significant difference in length and weight from birth onward compared to regional reference (p<0.001). Boys' birth length was 48.7+/-2.9 cm (p<0.001; -1.31+/-1.11 SDS), birth weight was 3.09+/-0.61 kg (p<0.01; -0.92+/-1.19 SDS), and BMI at birth was 12.9+/-1.7. Girls' birth length was 48.1+/-3.4 cm (p<0.05; -1.17+/-1.51 SDS), birth weight was 2.92+/-0.60 kg (p=0.05; -1.08+/-1.19 SDS), and BMI at birth was 12.6+/-2.2. There was a continuous loss of growth velocity, despite a wide variance in the first years, so height deficit became more evident with increasing age.


CONCLUSIONS
GHD is a congenital disease no matter when height deficit becomes clinically evident, because GH-deficient children grow in disease-specific percentile channels with a highly significantly reduced length and weight, which demonstrates that GH is essential for adequate growth in infancy and early childhood.
Mayer
M
M
Landes-Frauen- und Kinderklinik Linz, Linz, Austria. dr.michael.mayer@gmx.at
Schmitt
K
K
Kapelari
K
K
Frisch
H
H
Köstl
G
G
Voigt
M
M
D001317:Austria; D001724:Birth Weight / Q000502:physiology; D001827:Body Height / Q000502:physiology; D001835:Body Weight / Q000502:physiology; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006128:Growth / Q000502:physiology*; D019382:Human Growth Hormone / Q000172:deficiency*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male
D019382:Human Growth Hormone