Growth hormone therapy for non-growth hormone-deficient children with short stature

A summary of the majority of available uncontrolled studies showed that the final height attainment over predicted adult height for 322 children with idiopathic short stature treated with growth hormone (GH) was only 2.85 cm (+0.49 SDS). Further, a summary of seven studies reported that the spontaneous outcome in children with untreated idiopathic short stature was more than 1 SDS in final height compared with height at presentation, and patients with delayed puberty gained more than 2 SDS as adults. A reevaluation has concluded that short stature is not associated with clinically significant psychologic morbidity, and the psychologic outcome in response to GH treatment of the short normal child showed no discernible difference in psychologic benefit, despite a difference in height gained. A recent editorial strongly advised against the expanded use of GH in the normal short child.