Growth of Short Children Born Small for Gestational Age and Their Response to Growth Hormone Therapy.

Abstract
Growth hormone [GH] is licensed for use in children born small for gestational age (SGA) who fail to catch-up. We retrospectively compared the response of twenty children born SGA (who satisfied the auxological criteria) to growth hormone (Group I) versus randomly selected age and sex matched controls from a group of SGA children with growth related complaints, not treated with GH (Group II). After 2 years of GH therapy the HAZ increased from -2.8 to -1.6 in Group I, compared 2.2 to -1.7 in group II (P-value < 0.05). The percentage of pubertal children rose from 55% to 65% in cases versus 60% to 75% in the controls (P>0.05). GH resulted in increase in growth velocity Z-score during the first year and (4.3±0.5 in Group-I versus - 0.5±0.6 in Group-II, P<0.05) second year of treatment (1.7±0.4 in cases versus -0.6±0.7 in controls, P<0.05).Thus, GH improves height of short SGA children without accelerating pubertal progression.
Description
Keywords
Growth, Growth hormone (GH), Small for Gestational age (SGA)
Citation
Prasad Hemchand Krishna, Khadilkar Vaman V, Chiplonkar Shashi A, Khadilkar Anuradha V. Growth of Short Children Born Small for Gestational Age and Their Response to Growth Hormone Therapy. Indian Pediatrics. 2013 May; 50(5): 497-499.