Use of Insulin-Like Growth Factor One Level in the Diagnosis of Ideopathic Short Stature in Growth Hormone Unit in AL-Diwaniya Maternity and Children Hospital

Background: the diagnosis of idiopathic growth hormone deficiency remains a challenge for the clinician. The uncertainties in the cut-off values to describe growth hormone deficiency and reference data for growth hormone secretion in normally growing children, differences in growth hormone assays over the time, problems in reproducibility of growth hormone test results all contribute to this vagueness. However, diagnosing growth hormone deficiency is important to identify children who will benefit most from the GH treatment. GH dependent peptides, insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) and insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 3, (IGFBP-3) are good markers of growth hormone status and are useful in diagnosing GH deficiency as well as monitoring efficacy of growth hormone treatment.

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of IGF-1level in diagnosed short stature children without clear cause and had one of the following criteria.

Patients and method: cross sectional study comprised all short children seen in our Pediatric Endocrinology Unit in AL-Diwaniya maternity and children hospital from October 2021 to October 2022. IGF1-deficient children were defined as children without GH deficiency and with IGF1 levels below or equal to -2 SDS

Results: Among 37 children with isolated SS, 7 (18.91%) had low IGF-1 levels and normal GH level, consistent with a diagnosis of primary IGFD and 9(24.32%) non -growing, GHD children had normal IGF-1 levels

Conclusion: IGF-1 level has important clinical role in non-GHD, non-growing SS children.