Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Growth hormone (rhGH) is an effective treatment for short children born small for gestational age (SGA) who fail to demonstrate catch-up growth by 2–4 years of age. This children usually do not have classical GH deficiency, but either low GH secretion or reduced sensitivity to GH. The goals of therapy are to achieve a normal height in early childhood and an adult height within the normal target range.

Objectives: Evaluation of efficacity and safety profile in the first 5 years of rhGH treatment in ten SGA children.

Methods: The study enrolled ten SGA children (six boys, four girls). All patients were given a mean dose of 0.035 mg/kg per day and followed for a period of minimum 5years (mean 5.68 years).

Results: The mean height expressed in S.D. raised from −2.43 at diagnosis to +0.28 after 5 years. In the first 5 years of therapy there were no cases of diabetes mellitus or impaired glucose tolerance, two patients (20%) presented impaired fasting glucose, one patient (10%) developed hypothyroidism and four patients (40%) presented transitory subclinical hypothyroidism. Mean IGF1 values were higher than normal range, but not exceeding +2DS.

Conclusions: GH therapy is reasonably safe and effective in increasing linear growth in children born SGA who fail to have catch-up growth. Maximum height velocity was registered in the first year of treatment, 11.76 cm/year. and declined in time. No adverse events. Overall, GH treatment was safe and well tolerated.