Growth hormone response to growth hormone releasing factor in sickle cell disease.

Abstract

Many children with sickle cell disease (SCD) have impaired growth during childhood and adolescence, with patterns of growth consistent with constitutional delay in growth and pubertal development (CDGD). We evaluated the growth hormone (GH) response to a rapid intravenous (i.v.) infusion of growth hormone releasing factor (GRF, 1-44, 1 microgram/kg) in six children with SCD whose growth patterns and bone ages were consistent with CDGD. The peak GH response of the SCD patients to GRF (29.2 +/- 14.3 ng/ml, mean +/- SD, n = 6) was not statistically significantly different from the peak GH response of the control children (29.0 +/- 6.3 ng/ml, mean +/- SD, n = 7). These findings suggest that pituicyte GH response to GRF is intact and is not the cause of the observed impaired growth in patients with SCD.