GH treatment and its effect on bone mineral density, bone maturation and growth in short children born small for gestational age: 3-year results of a randomized, controlled GH trial.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Human Growth Hormone.

To investigate in a group of short children born small for gestational age (SGA), the effects of 3 years of GH treatment vs. no treatment on bone age (BA), height and bone mineral density (BMD).

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 12 children taking part.

The age groups tagged for this paper are young children and children, both men and women.

Non-GH-deficient (GHD) children (n = 87) were randomized to either a GH group (n = 61) or an untreated control group (n = 26).

In addition, 12 SGA children had GHD (GHD group) and were treated in parallel.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, open-label, multicenter and parallel-group.

Because people in this Human Growth Hormone study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Being open-label, the Human Growth Hormone study did not mask who received what.

More than one site took part, so the children came from several places.

Groups ran in parallel: each of the children stayed in one arm throughout.

BMD was evaluated using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA).

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Analysis of Variance, Body Height, Bone Density, Bone Development, Dwarfism, Pituitary, Human Growth Hormone and Infant, Small for Gestational Age.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, open-label and multicenter study of Human Growth Hormone in 12 children.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Results are reported in around 11 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2003 (Clinical endocrinology), a journal based in England.

More context: the related Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) library page, all human trials.