Endocrine Abstracts

Purpose: To study comparative influence of replacement GH therapy on a level of secretion of GH, IGF1 and IGFBP-3 in girls with endocrine and hereditary stunting.

Materials and methods: Forty-six girls aged 5.5 to 17 were examined. Of them somatotropic insufficiency (STI) was found in 13 girls, multiple deficiency of adenohypophyseal hormones (MDAH) in 11, idiopathic nanism (IN) in 12, Turner syndrome (TS) in 10 girls. Patients received subcutaneous injections of rGH NordiLet in the dose of 0.07–0.1 IU/1 kg of the body weight daily. GH treatment was continued during 6 months. Levels of GH, IGF1 and IGFBP-3 were measured before and after GH treatment.

Results and discussion: On the background of GH treatment all patients had a positive growth dynamics (growth rate before treatment was 2.5±0.05 cm/year and 10.1±2.45 cm/year following the GH treatment, (P<0.0001). The growth dynamics was less expressed in 4 adolescent girls with TS at 3 ones with IN. SDS made – 3.3±0.92 (P<0.0001) on the background of GH treatment. The level of GH, IGF1 and IGFBP-3 was reliably low in patients with MDAH, STI-insufficiency before GH treatment in comparison with girls with IN and TS who had GH levels at the bottom normal range. On the background of GH treatment all patients had a reliable rise in IGF1 and IGFBP-3 levels. Correlation between IGF1 and IGFBP-3 (P<0.001) was established.

Conclusion: A comparative analysis of the results obtained has shown that GH treatment accelerates reliably growth processes and increases IGF1 and IGFBP-3 levels in various types of stunting of endocrine and non-endocrine origin.