Published in:
01-03-2018 | Original Article
Effects of growth hormone treatment on adult height in severely short children with X-linked hypophosphatemic rickets
Authors:
Nadine Meyerhoff, Dieter Haffner, Hagen Staude, Elke Wühl, Michaela Marx, Rolf Beetz, Uwe Querfeld, Martin Holder, Heiko Billing, Wolfgang Rabl, Carmen Schröder, Olaf Hiort, Jürgen H. Brämswig, Annette Richter-Unruh, Dirk Schnabel, Miroslav Živičnjak, on Behalf of the Hypophosphatemic Rickets Study Group of the “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kinderendokrinologie und -diabetologie” and “Gesellschaft für Pädiatrische Nephrologie”
Published in:
Pediatric Nephrology
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Issue 3/2018
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Abstract
Background
We recently showed that a 3-year growth hormone (GH) treatment improves linear growth in severely short children with X-linked hypophosphatemic rickets (XLH). It is unknown if GH therapy increases adult height in XLH patients.
Methods
We carried out a follow-up analysis of a randomized controlled open-label GH study in short prepubertal children with XLH on phosphate and active vitamin D treatment. The changes in SD scores (SDS) of height, sitting height, leg and arm length, and sitting height index (i.e., the ratio between sitting height and height) were analyzed in 11 out of 16 patients followed-up until adult height.
Results
At baseline, XLH patients showed disproportionately short stature with reduced standardized height (−3.2 ± 0.6), sitting height (−1.7 ± 0.6), leg (−3.7 ± 0.7) and arm (−2.5 ± 0.8) length, and markedly elevated sitting height index (3.3 ± 0.6; each p < 0.01 versus healthy children). In GH-treated patients, adult height, sitting height, leg length, and arm length exceeded baseline values by 0.7 SDS, 1.7 SDS, 0.7 SDS, and 1.2 SDS respectively, although this was only significant for sitting height. In controls, no significant changes in linear body dimensions were noted. Adult height did not statistically differ between groups (−2.4 ± 0.7 vs −3.3 ± 1.2, p = 0.082). GH did not exaggerate body disproportion.
Conclusions
Growth hormone treatment did not significantly increase adult height in this group of short children with XLH, which may be at least partly due to the small number of patients included in our study.