Comparative validation of the growth hormone-releasing hormone and arginine test for the diagnosis of adult growth hormone deficiency using a growth hormone assay conforming to recent international recommendations

What Was Tested

Researchers studied GHRH (Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The objectives of the study were to validate the GHRH+Arg test for diagnosis of AGHD, using the ITT as comparator and a GH assay calibrated according to recent international recommendations, and to study the repeatability and tolerance of both tests.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are teenagers, adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

Sixty-nine subjects (38 and 15 with high and low probability of GH deficiency, respectively, and 16 healthy controls) were randomized: 35 to the GHRH+Arg-GHRH+Arg-ITT test sequence and 34 to the ITT-ITT-GHRH+Arg test sequence.

Each subject underwent three tests of GH secretion separated by 24 h or more.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, open-label and multicenter study.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the GHRH (Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone) group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Everyone knew when GHRH (Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone) was being given (open label), which is simpler to run but leaves more room for expectations to affect what is reported.

Running at several centres spread the GHRH (Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone) study over different clinics and patient groups.

This was a multicenter, randomized, open-label, phase III study.

The study was conducted at 10 French university hospitals.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Arginine, Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone, Human Growth Hormone, Hypopituitarism and Statistics, Nonparametric.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, open-label and multicenter study of GHRH (Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone).

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 10 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2010 (The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism), a journal based in United States.

More context: the GHRH (Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone) compound page.