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Let’s look at the opposite situation for just a moment. That being tall stature. Causes of tall stature are as follows: the most common is familial tall stature, just like short parents tend to get short kids, tall parents tend to get tall kids. Another cause, which may not be well known to you, is exogenous obesity. Now I should point out that children who are obese early in childhood tend to be tall early in childhood, but later on they stop growing prematurely and do not typically end up tall. So it’s not a great way to make a tall child permanently. Here’s an example of a growth chart of a child with exogenous obesity. I think you can see the weight zooming up there, and you’ll notice the height shifting concomitantly from the 25th to the 75th percentile. What’s likely to happen is this child is going to stop growing earlier than normal. Because obesity advances the bone age and if the bone age reaches in a boy 18 when the boy is 15 then he doesn’t grow anymore.
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What about endocrinological causes of tall stature? Well, sexual precocity, early production of androgens or estrogens can cause tall stature early on, just like obesity does. But if unregulated, untreated, these children will then end up short. Another entity, which is probably not well appreciated, is hyperthyroidism. At the time of hyperthyroidism in children, especially if it’s been present for awhile, these children tend to be disproportionately tall. With institution of treatment and normalization of thyroid function, then they tend to grow slowly back down to their genetic target channel. Gigantism or growth hormone excess is another cause, but I’m still waiting for the first case. And there are males with rare disorders involving estrogen deficiency, or estrogen resistance, which actually prevent the fusion of the epiphyses and allow these individuals to be taller than they are supposed to be.

Plasma leptin levels in humans with obesity are usually increased suggesting the presence of a leptin-resistant state. There have been described both leptin-deficient and leptin-resistant animal models of obesity, and if you get a deficient animal and replace them with leptin you can actually cure them of their obesity. It doesn’t work, probably, in people. Here is a patient with a genetic form of obesity, shown on the left, known as Prader-Willi syndrome. I will explain that to you in a moment in more detail. Okay, that’s also known as the H3A syndrome. If you like to remember things “acronymically”. That is to say, H number one is hypotonia which is usually present in utero and immediately postnatally. H number two is hypogonadism, and H number three is a made up word, “hypomenchia” meaning mental retardation, and the O stands for obesity and this condition is associated with deletions of chromosome 15 on the long arm. Another syndrome that is associated with obesity is the Laurence-Moon-Vidal syndrome with mental deficiency, extra digits or webbed digits, retinitis pigmentosa and hypogonadism. And you also see a frequent tendency toward obesity in Down syndrome. Online generic viagra pharmacy

Comments (0) Posted by Canadian Pharmacy on Wednesday, December 26th, 2007

Filed under Growth Disorders

If one found growth hormone deficiency and still needed to look further, the MRI is a very beautiful tool. What you see here is the hypothalamic-pituitary stalk, the nose is out here and there is a transection. You see where it is black in the middle and this is where the MRI has helped to find certain forms of congenital growth hormone deficiency that, in the old days with other imaging studies, we could not appreciate.
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How do you treat short stature? Well, if it’s growth hormone deficiency you give growth hormone and clearly the only kind that is available is the biosynthetic kind. This is FDA approved. This is the only form of growth hormone that we have been using since 1985 and you may remember back then – or you may not because you were in high school – that the pituitary-derived form of growth hormone was found to be associated with the slow viral disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease which is fatal and therefore we no longer use that formulation. There are various dosing strategies that are used, that I’m not going to belabor. Growth hormone tends to be a fairly benign drug and some of the side effects are listed here. They are all written down in your syllabus. Now growth hormone is also FDA approved to treat short stature associated with chronic renal failure prior to transplantation. The rationale being that with transplantation the patients will grow better, which isn’t always the case, but it is FDA approved. These children are not deficient. They appear to be resistant and giving extra seems to help.

Growth hormone is also approved for use in Turner’s syndrome. We also will add low dose estrogen ultimately to this growth hormone regimen or instead of growth hormone at the age when girls should be starting puberty. As far as constitutional delay of growth in puberty and idiopathic short stature, growth hormone is not approved. We tend to use a lot of reassurance and counseling. Occasionally, in boys, we will use testosterone and studies have still not given us the answers as to whether growth hormone actually helps in this entity.

Comments (0) Posted by Canadian Pharmacy on Wednesday, December 26th, 2007

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Now growth hormone deficiency, if present, can be an isolated phenomenon or a current combination with other pituitary hormone deficiencies. Its etiology is usually a hypothalamic deficiency, which really means that the patients aren’t truly growth hormone deficient; they are deficient in the hypothalamic factor growth hormone releasing hormone which regulates growth hormone. But from a treatment perspective, we use growth hormone because it’s easier to use and hence we say that the patients are growth hormone deficient. This can be idiopathic. It can be the result of tumors or their treatment. Most commonly craniopharyngioma. This can be due to congenital anomalies, including the things listed here that can be involved. The septum pellucidum and the optic nerve, septo-optic dysplasia. It can be a congenital transsection of the hypothalamic pituitary stalk, various gross midline syndromes described here. Trauma, surgery, radiation, the result of infection, pretty much anything has been associated. Now just to remind you, I’ve said it several times; if you have an endocrine cause of short stature, in this group the height is usually affected earlier and to a greater degree than is the weight. These patients have a relative weight excess but they are typically not obese.
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Now if you have a short child, what would be the initial workup? Well, it depends on certain factors. If that child is short but the right height for his or her genetic makeup and growing at a normal rate, that child has familial short stature and the workup is “See ya later.” Nothing. If the child is short for its genetic makeup -that is, its parents are relatively tall and he or she is short but is growing at a normal rate – typically the only thing we need to do is a bone age, because that child is going to have constitutional short stature. If however the child is short for his or her genetic makeup and is growing slowly, you would still do a bone age to get an idea of the relative delay. And if delayed, you have to start looking for the various systemic and endocrine diseases I’ve just highlighted for you. The workup would include – not necessarily in this order – but a lateral skull x-ray because there you are looking for a craniopharyngioma – and 89-90% of them show up on a lateral skull x-ray. You’ll want to do a CBC including a sed rate as a screen for inflammatory bowel disease. You want to do a chem panel including BUN and creatinine as a screen for silent renal disease. Thyroid function test, a 3T4, a T4, a TSH or perhaps just a TSH, and as a screen for growth hormone deficiency, there are two peptides that can be measured in the serum that is commercially available that are regulated by growth hormone; IGF-1, and IGFBP-3, a binding protein in the plasma for this. They are both regulated by growth hormone and in growth hormone deficiency they tend to be low, and that’s a place to start at least in looking for growth hormone problems.
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If the bone age has not been made and the child is growing slowly and too short for his genetics, or her genetics, one has to consider intrinsic bone diseases and Turner’s syndrome in females. The screening for Turner’s syndrome being gonadotropins. At least after about age nine, or if the suspicion is high enough, ultimately the karyotype is the definitive test. Sometimes you need to look at the spine for subtle bone dystrophies that might present in this manner. Here is a lateral scolex where the nose is over here and the cell is hard to find where the pituitary was and there is a lot of disruption of it and you can see sort of two floors in the suprasellar calcification. This is what a craniopharyngioma looks like merely on the lateral skull x-ray. Now if you need to proceed with growth hormone deficiency, you need to remember a tiny bit of physiology. A random growth hormone level is a waste of time and a waste of money because growth hormone is secreted mostly during sleep and during deep sleep and therefore we make the statement that growth hormone secretion is sleeping. The medical word for that, the Latin word for that, is nyctohemeral pattern of secretion. In order, therefore – since we don’t make house calls at night and kids don’t like to be stuck at night – we have to use provocation tests taking advantage of pharmacology of growth hormone regulation. So there are various approaches one can use to stimulate growth hormone. I am not going to belabor the point but they all capitalize either on that physiology, or in the case of insulin, hypoglycemia; that hypoglycemia is a stimulus to counter regulatory hormone secretion of all kinds, including growth hormone.
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Comments (0) Posted by Canadian Pharmacy on Friday, December 21st, 2007

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Now here is a young lady who doesn’t look very happy, and you would probably have trouble telling – and I’m going to give you a better demonstration in the second talk about this – but she happens to have myxedema of her face, which you might not be able to tell, but I show her to you as a representative patient with long-standing acquired primary hypothyroidism. Alternatively, as another endocrine cause, which you could use that growth curve to show, this is a patient with endogenous Cushing’s syndrome. You’ll notice a sort of plethoric round face. There is a buffalo hump on the back that you can’t see. He’s got centralized obesity with lymph sparing. He’s got a lot of acne and he has easy bruisability with a lot of ecchymoses and he has horizontal stria of his legs. So if one is considering hypothyroidism, the most common cause for hypothyroidism which can affect linear growth would be Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. Much less common would be a form of central thyroidism, and I don’t really think we should include congenital hypothyroidism in this discussion because these patients will be ascertained differently.
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Patients glucocorticoid excess certainly can grow poorly in height and that can be due to endogenous forms, which are relatively rare. But much more commonly this is an iatrogenic problem due to the use of high doses of glucocorticoid to save lives of patients with certain types of diseases.

Now here is a young boy with growth hormone deficiency, untreated, who is about 100 cm tall. He’s about six or seven-years-old and he’s got this sort of centralized pot belly here. He’s got some round cheeks. This is the so-called cherubic look of untreated growth hormone deficiency. He also has a micropenis which occurs in boys with this condition. How he lasted so long without getting medical attention just because of this is another question I can’t answer. But the reason the patients with growth hormone deficiency have this little weight excess is because growth hormone, in addition to making you grow, is a lipolytic hormone. If you lack a lipolytic hormone you’re lipogenic. Unfortunately most lipogenic people do not lack growth hormone, but that’s another story. If you are hypothyroid you could look like this too from myxedema, and if you have Cushing’s disease, as I’ve shown you, you certainly can have a relative weight excess. But none of the patients tend to be obese.

Comments (0) Posted by Canadian Pharmacy on Friday, December 21st, 2007

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Now only half of the patients with Turner’s syndrome have the classic 45 X karyotype. It used to be called 45 XO but technically there is no O chromosome, so we just call it 45 X. The remainder are mosaics, and contrary to popular opinion they are not necessarily less stigmatized. There is certainly no difference in final height outcome between straight 45 X patients and those with mosaics. The same thing would be true in the patient group with Turner’s syndrome who have structural abnormalities of the X chromosome; that is to say, they have 46 chromosomes and two X’s but not all of both X’s. These patients too have Turner’s syndrome and are not necessarily less stigmatized than the classic 45 X patients.
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The physical findings, as you know, in Turner’s syndrome; the first patient demonstrated that. At least some of them include lymphedema, webbed neck – but I want to point out to you that webbed neck is only present 25% of the time – the increased angle at the elbow, short knuckles or metacarpals, usually involving the fourth; known as brachymetacarpia. It can also involve the toes. There may be hypoplastic nails. If any or all of these are present in the newborn period then one would suspect this diagnosis at that time and initiate a workup. However, as demonstrated by the second girl, about 50% of affected girls have no stigmata except short stature and ovarian failure, which may be hard to tell prior to the age when puberty is supposed to start. These girls typically 50% later in childhood – because you would have no reason at birth to suspect this diagnosis – but the most important point is that the diagnosis of Turner’s syndrome must be considered in any and all short, slowly growing females. Turner’s syndrome patients will also get renal anomalies, such as duplicated collecting system, and horseshoe kidneys. They get congenital heart disease, and in case they ask you this on the Boards, the most common congenital heart lesion in
Turner’s syndrome is an isolated non-stenotic, bicuspid aortic valve in about 20% of patients. This requires SBE prophylaxis. It is not coarctation of the aorta, which is at best 10%, and probably less. These girls get a lot of otitis media and many of them have requirements for PE tubes. There is an increased risk of autoimmunity causing most commonly Hashimoto thyroiditis and scoliosis.
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Let’s next talk about endocrine diseases. As indicated on the slide, either growth hormone deficiency or acquired hypothyroidism, the growth curve could well be the same. What you see here in this boy are heights in the 5th percentile, which are at the low end of his target height range, and then at this point he starts to drift off and almost grows nothing in this last year. You’ll notice his weight is preserved, and that is a very important point. Unlike non-endocrine systemic diseases where the weight is affected earlier and to a greater degree than the height typically; with endocrine causes the weight is preserved. So it’s very important to look at both parts of the growth curve.

Comments (0) Posted by Canadian Pharmacy on Thursday, December 20th, 2007

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This is a child with Russell-Silver syndrome who is about nine-months-old, who had intrauterine and postnatal growth retardation with a relative sparing of the head. That’s why the face has sort of a triangular appearance to it. The brain is growing behind the forehead normally and causes this relative dysmorphism but that’s actually a good thing. But the issue of asymmetry, I think you can see between the legs. This one, if you can imagine the circumference of this is wider than that one, so this leg is either bigger than that one, or that one is smaller than this one, but there is asymmetry. And if present, enables you to make this diagnosis. For the purposes of demonstration here is a child with achondroplasia. In case you are curious, a hyperchondroplasia is a milder variant of this, but these individuals end up frequently around four feet tall as adults.
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Another category of genetic disease, which is very important and actually quite common, is Turner’s syndrome. Here is a female growth chart showing a representative pattern of height drifting away from the 5th percentile period. Hopefully one wouldn’t let that happen, actually. The weights are relatively preserved at the bottom, and then the mid-parental target height is around the 25th percentile. Now here is a classic picture of a stigmatized 16-year-old girl with Turner’s syndrome. I think you can tell she is short. If people put the blood pressure cuff on the wall at the standardized height, she’s about four foot six in this picture. She has the angling out of the arms, or the increased carrying angle – cubitus valgus – she has the webbed neck, and if you could look at her mouth and her ears you would see other features. This also is a young woman with Turner’s syndrome. But she’s not very tall either because she is the height of the top of a standard floor scale. But what you see in this picture is a basically normal-looking young lady. And this young lady – as do 20% of patients with Turner’s syndrome – had, at least for a while, normal ovarian function, enabling her to develop breasts and she has absolutely no stigmata except short stature. So that’s going to tell you something about the index of suspicion.
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In words, let me give you a few points about Turner’s syndrome. It’s also characterized by primary ovarian failure, or gonadal dysgenesis, but in most – but not all – subjects it occurs rather commonly, which you may or may not be aware of; 1:2,000 live female births. It is usually associated with non-functioning ovaries, and hence there is no estrogen development or breast development. However, as I mentioned and showed you on the previous slide, 20% of girls may have ovarian function for at least some time, but typically infertility is the rule, greater than 99% of the time. Adrenarche is the development of secondary sexual hair and I think the second girl demonstrated that. Short stature is probably universal and is characterized by a relatively greater involvement of the limbs and the trunk. Hence, if you compare the upper half of the body to the lower half of the body and create a mathematical ratio it will be elevated at all ages. And that in fact can be a poor man’s tip-off that you may be dealing with Turner’s syndrome. These girls do respond to growth hormone therapy even though they are not technically growth hormone deficient. In fact, growth hormones are approved for use in Turner’s syndrome by the Food and Drug Administration. There are also specific growth charts for Turner’s syndrome that are available.

Comments (0) Posted by Canadian Pharmacy on Thursday, December 20th, 2007