Research Article

Frequency of Idiopathic Short Stature at Pediatric Endocrine Clinic in a Tertiary Care Hospital at Lahore

Muhammad Usman, Sommayya Aftab, Abid Rafiq Chaudhry, Aamer Naseer, Rafia Gul, Taeed Ahmed Butt

Pakistan Postgraduate Medical Journal · Vol. 35, No. 03 · Published December 4, 2024 · DOI: 10.51642/ppmj.v35i03.581

iD ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0605-7089 · View All Publications by Dr. Rafia Gul

In Brief

Many parents worry when their child is shorter than other children of the same age. Most short children are healthy and simply growing at their own pace or following their family’s height, but a few have no clear reason for being short. This study looked at 188 short children seen in a pediatric endocrine clinic to find out how often the cause stayed unexplained.

Key Points

• A retrospective cross-sectional study of 188 children aged 2 to 18 years with height below the 3rd percentile, at the pediatric endocrine clinic of Fatima Memorial Hospital, Lahore, from January 2019 to December 2020.
• Most children had normal variants of growth: constitutional delay of growth and puberty (41%) and familial short stature (35.1%). Growth hormone deficiency was found in 9%.
• Idiopathic short stature, where no cause could be found, was seen in 10 children (5.3%). Eight of the 10 were girls, and half were under 8 years old.
• More research is needed to find the genetic causes of idiopathic short stature and to see how well these children respond to growth hormone treatment.

Idiopathic Short Stature (ISS)Constitutional Delay of Growth and Puberty (CDGP)Familial Short Stature (FSS) Growth Hormone Deficiency (GHD)Human Growth Hormone (hGH)

Published in the Pakistan Postgraduate Medical Journal, Vol. 35, No. 03 (July–September 2024), Original Article. Open Access under CC BY 3.0. PDF shared by the authors.