Endocrine Abstracts

Background: This is associated with important physiological and psychobiological changes for the girl, the family and society. Decreasing the age of puberty has made it difficult to adapt to early sexual activity. Therefore, the diagnosis and management of precocious puberty must be specially considered to ensure the health of future generations. The appearance of secondary sexual characteristics in girls under the age of 8 is considered as precocious puberty (_2.5SD lower than the average age for normal puberty).

Objectives: Determine the prevalence of precocious puberty referred to pediatric endocrine clinic in Qazvin province of Iran from 2006 to 2018.

Materials and methods: In a descriptive epidemiological study, the cases of girls with precocious puberty referred to the endocrine clinic from April 2006 to June 2018 were investigated. Patient’s information was extracted with using a questionnaire and then were analyzed using t-test and chi-2 tests, and SPSS 16 software.

Results: From 586 girls, 94.4% had central precocious puberty and 5.6% had peripheral precocious puberty. Among the patients with central precocious puberty, 98.4% had idiopathic form and 1.6% had organic causes of true precocious puberty. Of patients with peripheral precocious puberty 64.9, 13.5, 10.8, 8.1 and 2.7% had hypothyroidism, CAH, ovarian cyst, exogenous estrogen consumption and Mac Cun Albright disease respectively. The average age of onset of puberty was 7.1 years. Most patients were in Tanner stage II of breast development. 13.4% of patients were obese and 11.3% were SGA (birth weight<2500 gr). The relationship between BMI, birth weight, age of onset of puberty with the causes of puberty was not significant.

Conclusion: True precocious puberty was the most common cause of precocious puberty in girls. Hypothyroidism was the most common cause of peripheral precocious puberty in girls.

Keywords: precocious puberty, central precocious puberty, peripheral precocious puberty, girls