Plasma growth hormone (GH) response to GH-releasing factor in normal children with short stature and patients with pituitary dwarfism.

Synthetic human pancreatic GRF (hpGRF-44) was administered as an iv bolus to 28 normal children with short stature and 27 patients with GH deficiency. After a dose of 1 or 2 micrograms hpGRF-44/kg BW, mean plasma GH levels peaked at 15 and 30 min, respectively, with corresponding values of 30.1 +/- 4.7 and 33.2 +/- 3.7 ( +/- SE) ng/ml in normal but short children. The overall plasma GH response was greater than that of other GH stimulation tests such as insulin-induced hypoglycemia, glucagon-propranolol or L-dopa administration. Plasma LH, FSH, TSH, PRL, and cortisol levels were not altered by hpGRF-44 injection. Sixteen of 27 patients with GH deficiency did not respond to a 2 micrograms/kg BW hpGRF-44. However, plasma GH increases to greater than 5 ng/ml occurred in the remaining 11 patients. Their GH levels reached peaks between 15 and 90 min, with values ranging between 5.8 and 17.8 ng/ml. Two of these responding patients were infused iv with hpGRF-44 at 2.5 micrograms/min for 90 min after receiving an iv bolus injection of 2 micrograms/kg BW. Their plasma GH levels increased and remained near peak values throughout the infusion period. However, no increase in plasma GH levels occurred after a second bolus injection of hpGRF-44 given at the end of the infusion. These results suggest that hpGRF-44 is useful for the diagnosis of GH deficiency in individuals with short stature and that some patients with GH deficiency, diagnosed on the basis of established tests, have GH responses to hpGRF-44.