[GH therapy in Prader-Willi syndrome]

Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a genetic disorder characterized by short stature, an insatiable appetite resulting in progressive obesity, hypotonia, and hypogonadism. Many of these symptoms suggest a hypothalamic dysfunction. In fact, reduced growth hormone (GH) secretion and low insulin-like growth factor (IGF- I) are shown in PWS resembling the GH deficient state. The GH treatment of patients with PWS are effective on growth and body composition with decreasing in body fat mass and increasing in body muscle mass, resulting in improvement of respiratory function and bone mineral density. The important advance effects reported during GH treatment of patients with PWS are diabetes mellitus and respiratory dysfunction was recently reported. It is very important that GH should be used with another treatment such as diet therapy, and with only this way GH can play an important role among the overall treatments of PWS.