Secretion of hGH in constitutional delay of growth and adolescence (CDGA) and in ???early normal puberty??? (ENP)

Abstract

Acc. to our hypothesis (1972), the retarded sexual maturation in CDGA and the accelerated maturation in ENP are no primary phenomenons but secondary ones - due to a slow resp. fast somatic development in general, connected with different growth velocity. In order to elucidate the cause of the latter one we measured the sleep-induced hGH-secretion in 15 pat. with CDGA, 14 controls with same bone age and 1 girl with ENP. The mean value of the highest individual peaks of plasma-hGH was 38.9 ng/ml for the controls and 22.6 ng/ml for the pat. with CDGA (Δ signif. w.p < 0.01). The highest peak of the accelerated girl was 55 ng/ml in the first half of the night and 157 ng/ml 5 a.m.. The controls showed a mean hGH-secretion of 4814 ng/ml during the 5 1/2 hours observation time, the pat. with CDGA of 2614 ng/ml (Δ signif. w.p < 0.001). The accelerated girl had a hGH-secretion of 6648 ng/ml per 5 1/2 hours. First therapeutic trials with hGH (12 i.u./m2/week) appeared successful, growth velocity being nearly doubled.