Growth-Promoting Strategies in Turner’s Syndrome

Abstract

TURNER’S syndrome is an important cause of short stature in girls and primary amenorrhea in young women. First described in 1930 by Otto Ullrich (1) in Germany and subsequently in 1938 by Henry Turner (2) in the United States, it is the most common sex-chromosome abnormality in females, affecting an estimated 3\\% of all females conceived. However, only 1 in 1000 embryos with a 45,X karyotype survives to term, accounting for about 15\\% of all spontaneously aborted fetuses (3). Thus, the incidence of the loss of all or part of an X chromosome varies from 1:2000 to 1:5000 in liveborn phenotypic females (3–8). In a recent prospective study of 17,038 newborn girls born in Aarhus, Denmark, nine karyotypes consistent with Turner’s syndrome were detected, for an incidence of 1:1893 live female births (8). There are currently estimated to be from 50,000 to 75,000 girls and women with Turner’s syndrome in the United States alone (9).