Adult Height in Growth Hormone (GH)-Deficient Children Treated with Biosynthetic GH

Near-adult height (AH) was determined in 121 children (72 males and 49 females) with GH deficiency (GHD) who were prepubertal when they began treatment with recombinant DNA-derived preparations of human GH. AH as a sd score was −0.7 ± 1.2 (mean ± sd), significantly greater than the pretreatment height sd score (−3.1 ± 1.2), the predicted AH sd score (−2.2 ± 1.2; Bayley-Pinneau method), and the height sd score at the start of puberty (−1.9 ± 1.3). In contrast to studies of GH treatment outcome, which used pituitary-derived GH (pit-GH) in lower doses, we found that males did not have a higher AH sd score than females, spontaneous puberty did not diminish AH, and AH was significantly greater than that predicted at the start of GH treatment. In a multiple regression equation, the statistically significant variables (all P < 0.0001) related to AH (r2 = 0.70) were the following: duration of treatment with GH, sex (males were taller than females, as expected for the normal population), age (younger children had ...