Children and human growth hormone

Until the mid 1980s, human growth hormone was in very short supply. It was therefore only used to treat children who had severe growth problems (either because they didn’t produce any growth hormone themselves, or because they produced very low levels of growth hormone).

Today, because of recombinant technology, growth hormone is more widely available. This allows treatment of a wide range of conditions in children, including:

• Lack of growth hormone - GH deficiency/insufficiency (GHD)
• Small for gestational age (SGA)
• Turner syndrome
• Chronic renal disease (CRD)
• Prader-Willi syndrome
• Short stature homeobox - containing gene (SHOX) deficiency

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