Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Although the decline in sex steroid levels, particularly estradiol, may be largely responsible for age-related bone loss and osteoporotic fractures in older women, the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) system may also play a key role. This study aimed at evaluating the relation between the secretory status of growth hormone (GH) with the bone mineral content (BMC) in postmenopausal women.

Methods and materials: In a descriptive cross-sectional study, 150 postmenopausal healthy women out of 1328 patients referred to Tabriz Sina Hospital for bone densitometry were selected. They were a matched population of normal, osteopenic and osteoporotic subjects. The GH response to provocation by clonidine was assessed in all patients. The radioimmunoassay (RIA) employed to measure the serum level of the GH. Bone Mineral Content was measured DEXA using LUNAR version DPC-MD apparatus. The correlation between basal and stimulated GH and BMCs of femoral and lumbar bones were studied.

Results: One hundred and fifty patients with a mean age of 65.6±6.6 years were enrolled in this study. The correlation coefficient of BMC of total lumbar area with basal GH, GH 60 and 90 min were −0.04, −0.06 and 0.04 respectively. The correlation coefficient of BMC of total femoral area with basal GH, GH 60 and 90 min were −0.07,−0.08 and −0.09 respectively. None of the correlations were statistically significant (all Ps were >0.05).

Conclusion: Based on this study results we cannot show any correlation between BMC of evaluated skeletal areas and secretory pattern of GH in a population of postmenopausal women composed of osteoporotic, osteopenic and normal subjects.