Psychosocial growth failure: a positive response to growth hormone and placebo.

Seven children were diagnosed as having an emotional cause for growth failure. Pretreatment growth hormone secretion profiles during sleep were analysed using PULSAR. Mean (+/- SD) growth hormone concentration was 10.9 (4.4) mU/l, mean peak 19.6 (6.7) mU/l and the peak-to-peak interval 147 (108) min. Mean (SEM) IGF-I was 1.08 (0.31). The seven children received a six-month course of recombinant growth hormone in a double-blind, crossover study using a dose of 1.2 U/kg/week (28 U/m2/week). Daily placebo injections were given for the other six-month epoch, with a one month washout period. The mean (SEM) growth velocity SD score after growth hormone administration was +4.66 (1.88) and after placebo -0.60 (0.69), each value being greater than the pretreatment value of -2.32 (0.122) (p less than 0.0001 on analysis of variance). The change in IGF-I during growth hormone treatment was not significant. No significant changes in food energy or protein intake occurred.