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ACCELERATION OF DELAYED GROWTH WITH FLUOXYMESTERONE
Author(s) -
LENKO HANNA LIISA,
MÄENPÄÄ JORMA,
PERHEENTUPA JAAKKO
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
acta pædiatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/j.1651-2227.1982.tb09551.x
Subject(s) - medicine , growth velocity , bone age , psychosocial , body height , pediatrics , demography , body weight , psychiatry , sociology
. 61 boys with constitutional delay of growth and maturation, aged 9‐19 years and with a bone age (BA) lag of 1.3‐5.5 years, were administered fluoxymesterone (0.05‐0.24 mg/kg daily orally, relative dose increasing with age) to accelerate growth. The therapy was continuous and lasted 0.4‐3.6 years. The findings are compared with 37 observation periods in a similar group of untreated boys. Growth velocity increased in every treated boy during the therapy, the mean first‐year increment being 4.3±1.6 cm/year. For most boys this brought about a decrease in the height difference from peers, and so afforded the psychosocial relief that was the objective of the therapy. After therapy the velocity decreased slightly hi most boys, from a mean of 9.1±1.4 to 7.1±3.3 cm/year. The effect of the intervention on final height was assessed by three relatively independent methods of prediction. These were found to be equally valid in the 15 control boys for whom final heights are known. The effect appeared to vary individually, but on the average there appeared to be no loss of height potential. No individual boy with initial BA>10.5 years showed a substantial reduction in predicted final height.