Perspectives
Measuring the benefits of growth hormone therapy in children: a role for preference-based approaches?
1 Health Economics Research Centre, Department of Public Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
2 National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, Department of Public Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Correspondence to:
Dr S Petrou, National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, University of Oxford (Old Road Campus), Old Road, Headington, Oxford OX3 7LF, UK; stavros.petrou@npeu.ox.ac.uk
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Recombinant human growth hormone has revolutionised the management of children with growth hormone deficiency, chronic renal insufficiency, Turner syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, small-for-gestational-age status, idiopathic short stature and other growth disorders in recent decades. The benefits of administering growth hormone to children have commonly been measured in terms of acceleration in linear growth.1 Although informative, lines of enquiry that measure the benefits of recombinant human growth hormone in natural or physical units, such as acceleration in linear growth, suffer from a number of limitations. Most notably, they are unable to incorporate the several health changes that can result from growth hormone therapy, including the increased risk of a number of adverse effects1 such as pigmentation and growth of nevi, gynecomastia, pancreatitis and benign intracranial hypertension, within a single measure. In addition, they overlook the broader effects that the treatment may have on children’s physical, mental and social well-being, as well individual
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
Relevant Articles
- Facilitating and understanding the family’s choice of injection device for growth hormone therapy by using conjoint analysis
- S F Ahmed, W A Smith, and C Blamires
Arch. Dis. Child. 2008 93: 110-114.[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
- Monitoring of concordance in growth hormone therapy
- R R Kapoor, S A Burke, S E Sparrow, I A Hughes, D B Dunger, K K Ong, and C L Acerini
Arch. Dis. Child. 2008 93: 147-148.[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
- Citation Map
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in ADC Online
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
-
Hypertension
-
Child health
-
Pancreatitis
-
Drugs: CNS (not psychiatric)
-
Renal medicine
- Relevant Articles
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
