Division of Genetics, Department of Pediatrics, Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan.
Pediatr Neonatol. 2011 Aug;52(4):183-9. doi: 10.1016/j.pedneo.2011.05.003. Epub 2011 Jul 18.
Estimation of children's final height is of great interest for pediatric endocrinologists in diagnosing and evaluating the treatment of short stature. The current study was performed to characterize the feature of offsprings' final heights by their parents' heights by gender in Taiwan.
Healthy participants aged 25-35 years who underwent health examinations were recruited for body height measurements with standard processes regulated by a protocol and were enquired about their parental peak adult heights in 2003-2004. Differential contributions from each parent to the tallest/shortest child's height in the family were then assessed with simple linear regressions with scatter plots by gender. Meanwhile, statistical comparisons with the corrected midparental height method and final height for parental height model were performed.
A total of 1113 male and 1036 female participants were enrolled. The fathers' height contributed the most to the tallest son's height in the family (adjusted R²=0.20), and mother's height contributed the most to the shortest daughter's height in the family (adjusted R²=0.18). Specifically, the final height for parental height line worked better for the contribution of midparental height to the tallest son's height in prediction.
For clinical practice, our results provided a reasonable estimation of final heights among local Taiwanese population and are also applicable for the evaluation of growth hormone replacement therapies for patients with short stature of non-growth-hormone defect.
对于儿科内分泌学家来说，估计儿童的最终身高对于诊断和评估身材矮小的治疗非常重要。本研究旨在通过父母的身高按性别特征来描述台湾儿童最终身高的特点。
2003-2004 年，我们招募了年龄在 25-35 岁之间的健康参与者，他们接受了健康检查，并按照标准程序进行身高测量，并询问了他们父母在成年时的最高身高。然后，通过性别进行简单线性回归和散点图评估每个父母对家庭中最高/最矮孩子身高的差异贡献。同时，与中亲身高法和父母身高模型的最终身高进行了统计学比较。
共纳入 1113 名男性和 1036 名女性参与者。父亲的身高对家庭中最高的儿子的身高贡献最大（调整后的 R²=0.20），而母亲的身高对家庭中最矮的女儿的身高贡献最大（调整后的 R²=0.18）。具体来说，父母身高线的最终身高在预测中亲身高对最高儿子身高的贡献方面表现更好。
对于临床实践，我们的结果为当地台湾人群的最终身高提供了合理的估计，也适用于非生长激素缺陷导致身材矮小患者生长激素替代治疗的评估。
