Final height after combined growth hormone and gonadotrophin-releasing hormone analogue therapy in short healthy children entering into normally timed puberty.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) and Leuprolide.

Who Took Part

The study group was 10 children.

PubMed indexes the participants as children, both men and women.

The mean chronological age of their patients was 11.8 +/- 1.3 years, with a mean bone age of 11.2 +/- 0.9 years, height of 128.9 +/- 7.5 cm (-2.4 +/- 0.4 SD below the mean) and a predicted adult height of 150.7 +/- 9.8 cm; they were all in Tanner stage II-III of puberty.

Ten healthy short children (7 girls and 3 boys) in the early stages of puberty with a mean chronological age of 11.4 +/- 1.0 years, a mean bone age of 11.0 +/- 0.8 years, height of 128.9 +/- 7.8 cm (-2.3 +/- 0.4 SD below the mean) and a mean adult predicted height of 151.8 +/- 10.1 cm served as controls and were simultaneously followed without therapy for the same study period.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized.

The children were allocated by chance, so the Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Height and pubertal status were followed every 3 months during combined therapy and until final height of their patients was reached; bone ages were obtained every 6 months.

Growth hormone deficiency was ruled out in all their subjects prior to beginning of the study by a normal response to oral clonidine and normal IGF-1 levels.

Routine biochemistry as well as thyroid function tests were obtained at each visit.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Body Height, Case-Control Studies, Estradiol, Follicle Stimulating Hormone, Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone, Growth Disorders and Growth Hormone.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Exogenous HGH, sermorelin & older GHRPs (why they're passed over) and Leuprolide in 10 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.

Its findings take up roughly 5 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 1998 (Clinical endocrinology), a journal based in England.

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