Deficient or Normal Growth Hormone Secretion in Polish Children with Short Stature: Searching for Clinical...

Area of Science:

• Pediatrics
• Endocrinology
• Child Health

Background:

• Short stature affects 2.5% of children, with growth hormone deficiency (GHD) sometimes treated with recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH).
• Diagnostic standards for GHD can be controversial, necessitating further data for refined recommendations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the clinical characteristics of Polish children with short stature.
• To evaluate the relevance of current GHD diagnostic standards using a 10 ng/mL peak growth hormone (GH) cutoff.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of 277 short stature children.
• Division into GHD (peak GH < 10 ng/mL) and normal GH secretion (GHN) subgroups.
• Comparison of clinical data including gender, birth weight, bone age, height SDS, IGF-1 SDS, vitamin D, celiac indices, hypothyroidism, and anemia.

Main Results:

• No significant differences were observed between GHD and GHN subgroups across all analyzed clinical variables.
• Key parameters like gender, birth weight, bone age delay, height SDS, IGF-1 SDS, and prevalence of comorbidities showed no distinction.

Conclusions:

• The findings indicate substantial clinical overlap between children diagnosed with GHD and those with normal GH secretion based on the 10 ng/mL cutoff.
• The clinical relevance of distinguishing between GHD and GHN using this specific cutoff value appears questionable.