Selective impairment of growth hormone response to physiological stimuli

Abstract

In a consecutive group of 25 children with defective growth being evaluated for growth hormone deficiency, EEG monitored slow wave sleep provided discriminatory serum growth hormone responses equivalent to those obtained by arginine and insulin hypoglycaemia provocation. Exercise was less effective but was able to provide a useful screening test. In 2 subjects with abnormal physiological but normal pharmacological serum growth hormone responses, therapeutic administration of growth hormone in one resulted in a significant growth increment, whereas in the other, advanced epiphyseal maturity precluded adequate evaluation. A normal growth hormone response to a pharmacological stimulus does not exclude a therapeutic response to human growth hormone.