Nutritional Counseling in Children with Growth Hormone Deficiency Treated with Recombinant Human Growth Hormone: Analysis of Growth Response Parameters.

Growth failure is the main symptom of growth hormone deficiency (GHD) in children. The standard treatment for GHD is the administration of recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH). However, this therapy seems to be less effective in undernourished children. Our study aimed to investigate if professional dietary counseling could affect the parameters of growth response in GHD children undergoing rhGH treatment. The study group involved 29 prepubertal children with GHD (20 boys and 9 girls) aged 8.7 ± 2.50, who were subject to a year of individualized nutritional counseling from a dietician, which included three sessions in 6-month intervals, starting at the beginning of rhGH treatment. The control group consisted of 47 children with GHD (33 boys and 14 girls) aged 8.8 ± 1.73 who were not under the care of the dietician during their rhGH treatment. Parameters of growth response, including the variation of height standard deviation score (ΔhSDS) and height velocity (HV), were compared between the groups during the first two years of rhGH therapy. The mean HV and ΔhSDS were slightly higher in the study group than in the control group during both the first and the second year of rhGH therapy, however, those differences did not reach a statistical significance. BMI z-score was stable throughout the observation period. One-year of dietary counseling, starting at the beginning of rhGH treatment, and conducted in 6-month intervals did not significantly improve the parameters of growth response in prepubertal GHD children during the first two years of the therapy.