title: Etiology of precocious puberty, 10 years study in Endocrine Reserch Centre (Firouzgar), Tehran.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Precocious puberty, as early physical development and low final height might lead to psychosocial problems.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate etiology and clinical feature of precocious puberty in a cohort of Iranian children.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this case-series study, 44 girls and 8 boys with precocious puberty referred to Endocrine Reserch Centre (Firouzgar), Institute of Endocrinology and Metabolism (Hemmat Campus), were examined in a 10 years period of time.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Mean age of girls and boys was 7.43±1.4 years and 5.8±2.1 years respectively. Most of the patients fell within the age category of 7-7.9 years old (40.9% for girls and 50% for boys). Patients, concerning etiology of precocious puberty were classified in three categories: 42.6% of patients had central precocious puberty (CPP), including idiopathic CPP (87.5%) and neurogenic CPP (12.5%). 23.3% of patients had peripheral precocious puberty (PPP), including congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) (42.8%), ovarian cysts (28.4%), McCune-Albright syndrome (14.2%) and adrenal carcinoma (14.2%). 34.1% of girls and 25% of boys had normal variant puberty including premature thelarche (57%), premature adrenarche (38%) as well as premature menarche (4.7%l).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The most common etiology of precocious puberty in girls was idiopathic central precocious puberty and premature thelarche, while in boys they were neurogenic central precocious puberty and CAH. Therefore precocious puberty in girls is usually benign. In boys, CNS anomalies should first be considered in the differential diagnosis of CPP. Therefore brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is mandatory in all cases.
authors.affiliation: Endocrine Research Centre (Firouzgar), Institute of Endocrinology and Metabolism (Hemmat Campus), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. ; Ali Asghar Children's Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Farzaneh
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Rohani
authors.affiliation: Mofid Children's Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Shadab
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Salehpur
authors.affiliation: Booali Metabolic Research Center, Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Qazvin, Iran.
authors.forename: Fatemeh
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Saffari
keywords: Central precocious puberty; Congenital adrenal hyperplasia; Peripheral precocious puberty; Premature thelarche