Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Whilst puberty is understood to be commonly effected in adolescents with Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), the extent of this effect as well as related problems with growth have rarely been quantified.

Objective: To determine the impact of CD and UC on Size, Tempo and Velocity of the growth spurt.

Methods: Retrospective study of 142 children with IBD (case notes available, 68) who fulfilled the criteria for describing growth spurt parameters (48). Twelve children who had been treated with growth promoting agents (8 CDM, 2 CDF and 2 UCM) and four children who had coexisting conditions, which may impact on growth were excluded. The remaining groups CDM (11); CDF (8); UCM (5) and UCF (8) had median age at diagnosis of 13.2, 11.9, 11.7 and 11.0 years respectively.

Height at diagnosis (HAD) and height at peak height velocity (HPHV), converted to SDS, defined Size; age at PHV (APHV) defined Tempo; and PHV, converted to SDS adjusted for pubertal stage, defined velocity of the growth spurt. The median interval between height measurements was 0.4 years. Results expressed as median (range).

Results: There was no statistical difference between groups for each of the parameters. However 6/11 in CDM had 1 parameter effected: 1 subject had HADSDS <−2, 1 subject had HPHVSDS <−2, 2 subjects had an APHV >2 years above population mean, and 2 subjects had a PHVSDS <−2. There was no correlation between PHV and either HPHV or APHV in analysis of the whole group (r, −0.29, P=0.11 and r, 0.16, P=0.40) or in subgroup analysis.

Conclusion: As a group, disorders of the pubertal growth spurt are more likely to occur in boys with Crohn’s disease.