Premature adrenarche refers to the appearance of public hair before age 8 years in girls and 9 years in boys, without other signs of puberty or virilization. Growth velocity may be increased and slightly advanced bone maturation is often present and is usually well correlated with the height age. The transient acceleraration of growth and of bone maturation have no negative effects on the onset...

BACKGROUND Neonatal screening for 21 hydroxylase deficiency is designed to detect classical form of congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). It is still unclear whether newborns who result false positives at neonatal screening might later develop signs of androgen excess. The aim of this study is to verify whether a slightly elevated 17-OHP at newborn screening is a predictive factor for premature...

OBJECTIVE Serine-threonine kinase STK11 catalyzes the AMP-activated protein kinase complex. We tested the hypothesis that a gene variant in STK11 contributes to variation in insulin sensitivity and metformin efficacy. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We studied the effects of a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) (rs8111699) in STK11 on endocrine-metabolic and body composition indexes before and ...

Precocious puberty can cause several adverse effects on final growth and social behavior in girls. Recently studies showed that low serum vitamin D levels might be associated with precocious puberty. The aim of  this research was to investigate the association between serum vitamin D levels and central precocious puberty in girls. Girls with central precocious puberty under the age of 8 we...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the clinical features of Chinese women with idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (IHH). METHODS We retrospectively reviewed the clinical characteristics, laboratory and imaging findings, therapeutic management and fertility outcomes of 138 women with IHH. All patients had been treated and followed up at an academic medical centre during 1990-2016. RESULTS Among the...

Hypothalamic hamartomas (HHs) are benign tumours composed of ectopic neural and glial tissue. The prevalence is of 1--2 cases per 100 000 inhabitants. HHs can be pedunculated, usually associated to central precocious puberty, or sessile, associated with epilepsy with gelastic seizures that are commonly refractory to treatment. We present four cases of HH, which started as precocious puberty in ...