Sexual maturation among youth with ADHD and the impact of stimulant medication.
OBJECTIVE
Evaluate the differences in achieving puberty between ADHD and non-ADHD participants and the effects of medication on that process among ADHD participants.


METHODS
A subset of participants with ADHD from the Multimodal Treatment study of ADHD (n = 342) were compared with respect to Tanner staging to participants from a comparison group without ADHD (n = 159) at the 36-month follow-up assessment. Further comparisons were made for Tanner stages and Auxology of the participants in the ADHD group who were always (n = 61), never (n = 56), newly (n = 74) and inconsistently (n = 116) treated with stimulants.


RESULTS
No statistically significant differences in Tanner stages of sexual development were found between the ADHD and non-ADHD groups at the age of assessment (between 10 and 14 years of age) or among the ADHD medication subgroups, although a trend was observed for stimulant-associated delayed pubertal initiation using auxological analysis.


CONCLUSIONS
Children with or without ADHD did not differ in Tanner stages at the 3-year follow-up assessment, and exposure to stimulant medication does not appear to affect sexual development within this age range.
Faculty of Medicine, Montreal Children's Hospital and McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada, brian.greenfield@muhc.mcgill.ca.
Brian
B
Greenfield
Lily
L
Hechtman
Annamarie
A
Stehli
Timothy
T
Wigal
D000293:Adolescent; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D002170:Canada; D000697:Central Nervous System Stimulants / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D002648:Child; D003071:Cognition / Q000187:drug effects; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011627:Puberty / Q000187:drug effects*; D012741:Sexual Maturation / Q000187:drug effects*
D000697:Central Nervous System Stimulants