New challenges in the growth field.

When unlimited supplies of biosynthetic human growth hormone (hGH) became available in the late 1980s, the envisaged potential of its therapeutic applications was enormous in that it was hoped that perhaps most short children would be able to be made taller. However, this seems to have been far too simplistic a view and certainly in those children with various growth disorders treated with pharmacological doses of growth hormone (GH), the potential for increased final height does not appear to be fulfilled, with the exception of girls with Turner's syndrome. Further challenges in the growth field involve the manipulation of pubertal development during concomitant GH therapy.