Delayed puberty

Delayed puberty is the cause of much distress to adolescents and with modern techniques it is possible to arrive at a therapy-orientated diagnosis in the majority of instances. A relatively wide choice of therapeutic interventions is now available and may be employed, even in endocrinologically normal patients, if the situation warrants. In such patients, ther duration of therapy is very short. In patients with pathological causes of delayed puberty, the aim must be to reproduce the normal pubertal changes over the normal span of time and large doses of sex steroids should not be used early in the induction of puberty.