Growth hormone(GH) has been recognized as an effective treatment for short children born small for their gestational ages(SGA), and nowadays it has been widely used for the treatment of short children born SGA. The aim of this study is to assess the efficacy of GH treatment for the children born SGA.

The study population was made of 40 short children born SGA with GH-treated(n=26) and untreated control group(n=14). In order to evaluate the effect of GH treatment, the changes in standard deviation scores(SDS) of the GH-treated group were compared to the changes in SDS before and after treatment from the control group in the same period.

There were no differences between the GH-treated group and the control group in gestational age, birth weight, chronological age, target height and the period of follow-up observation; however, the GH-treated group had lower height SDS(-3.3±0.9) than the control group(-2.4±0.4) before treatment( P <0.05). The GH-treated group had gained 1.2±1.0 height SDS during GH treatment while the control group had gained 0.5±0.6 height SDS. In the GH treatment group, HDLcholesterol increased from 48.5±9.9 mg/dL to 56.1±8.7 mg/dL( P <0.05) and LDL-cholesterol decreased from 88.1±23.3 mg/dL to 76.4±19.4 mg/dL( P <0.05) after treatment. There were no changes in total cholesterol, triglyceride, free fatty acid and fasting blood sugar. IGF-I increased from 224.9± 191.3 µg/L to 443.2±152.5 µg/L( P <0.05) and IGFBP-3 also increased from 3.7±1.3 mg/L to 5.6±1.2 mg/L( P <0.05).

We conclude that growth hormone treatment is effective in the treatment of short children born SGA.