NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Treatment with growth hormone (GH) can improve the growth and nutritional status of children with cystic fibrosis who are receiving enteral nutrition, according to a new report. However, editorialists advise that GH therapy should be adopted only when clinical factors have been optimized.
The findings, in the March issue of The Journal of Pediatrics, are based on a study of 18 prepubertal children with cystic fibrosis (CF) who had been receiving enteral nutritional support for at least 2 years. The subjects were randomized to receive GH for 2 years or for 1 year with initiation delayed by 1 year.
Dr. Dana S. Hardin, from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, and colleagues found that GH therapy significantly improved the subjects’ height, weight, bone mineral content, and lean tissue mass. In addition, this therapy was tied to a reduction in hospitalizations.
GH therapy was also linked to significant increases in absolute forced vital capacity and FEV1. However, no significant change in percent predicted pulmonary function was seen, the researchers point out.
They say the results suggest that GH therapy not only optimizes nutrition and growth status in CF patients, it also improve clinical status.
However, in a related editorial, Dr. Carla Colombo and Dr. Alberto Battezzati, from the University of Milan in Italy, note that GH therapy should not be immediately given to CF patients with growth issues.
“GH treatment should be considered as an adjuvant to nutritional therapy for CF only after maldigestion is adequately corrected, the nutritional support has been optimally adjusted to the individual needs of the patient, aggressive pulmonary therapy has been provided, inflammation has been attenuated, the minimal dose of steroids, if needed, has been reached, and exogenous insulin requirements have been satisfied,” they emphasize.
Source: J Pediatr 2005;146:303-305,324-328. [ Google search on this article ]
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