Growth Hormone Stimulation Tests in Assessing Adult Growth Hormone Deficiency

Kevin C.J. Yuen

Growth Hormone Stimulation Tests in Assessing Adult Growth Hormone Deficiency

Review

In: Endotext [Internet]. South Dartmouth (MA): MDText.com, Inc.; 2000.

2023 Aug 8.

Author

Kevin C.J. Yuen¹

Book Editors

Kenneth R Feingold¹, S. Faisal Ahmed², Bradley Anawalt³, Marc R Blackman⁴, Alison Boyce⁵, George Chrousos⁶, Emiliano Corpas⁷, Wouter W de Herder⁸, Ketan Dhatariya⁹, Kathleen Dungan¹⁰, Johannes Hofland¹¹, Sanjay Kalra¹², Gregory Kaltsas¹³, Nitin Kapoor¹⁴, Christian Koch¹⁵, Peter Kopp¹⁶, Márta Korbonits¹⁷, Christopher S Kovacs¹⁸, Wendy Kuohung¹⁹, Blandine Laferrère²⁰, Miles Levy²¹, Elizabeth A McGee²², Robert McLachlan²³, Radhika Muzumdar²⁴, Jonathan Purnell²⁵, Rodolfo Rey²⁶, Rakesh Sahay²⁷, Amy S Shah²⁸, Frederick Singer²⁹, Mark A Sperling³⁰, Constantine A Stratakis³¹, Dace L Trence³², Don P Wilson³³

Affiliation

¹ Departments of Neuroendocrinology and Neurosurgery, Barrow Neurological Institute, Phoenix, AZ 85013, United States.

Book Affiliations

¹ Professor of Medicine Emeritus, University of California, San Francisco, CA
² Developmental Endocrinology Research Group, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
³ Chief of Medicine at the University of Washington Medical Center and Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Medicine, University of Washington
⁴ Sr. Physician Scientist, Washington DC VA Medical Center; Professor of Medicine & Rehabilitation Medicine, Georgetown University; Clinical Professor of Medicine, Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, George Washington University; and Professor of Medicine (Part-time), Johns Hopkins University
⁵ Pediatric Endocrinologist and Associate Research Physician in the Skeletal Diseases and Mineral Homeostasis Section, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institutes of Health
⁶ Professor of Pediatrics and Endocrinology, Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes, First Department of Pediatrics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Medical School, "Aghia Sophia" Children's Hospital, Athens, Greece
⁷ M.D. Ph.D in Gerontology. Honorary Professor of Medicine, Universidad de Alcalá, Madrid. Consultant in Endocrinology, Hospital HLA Guadalajara (Spain).
⁸ Professor of Endocrine Oncology, Erasmus MC and Erasmus MC Cancer Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
⁹ Consultant in Diabetes, Endocrinology and General Medicine, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.
¹⁰ Professor of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism, Ohio State University
¹¹ Consultant Endocrinologist, Erasmus MC and Erasmus MC Cancer Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
¹² Consultant Endocrinologist, Department of Endocrinology, Bharti Hospital, Karnal, India
¹³ Professor of General Medicine-Endocrinology, 1st Department of Propaedeutic Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
¹⁴ Professor of Endocrinology, Department of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Christian Medical College & Hospital, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Science, The University of Melbourne, Australia.
¹⁵ Professor, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee
¹⁶ Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetology and Metabolism, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
¹⁷ Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Centre Lead for Endocrinology and Deputy Institute Director, William Harvey Research Institute, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, London, England
¹⁸ University Research Professor and Professor of Medicine (Endocrinology and Metabolism), Obstetrics & Gynecology, and BioMedical Sciences, at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.
¹⁹ Director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology at Boston Medical Center and an Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Boston University School of Medicine
²⁰ Professor of Medicine, New York Nutrition Obesity Research Center, Division of Endocrinology, Department of Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY, USA.
²¹ Consultant endocrinologist at University Hospitals of Leicester and Honorary Associate Professor at Leicester University
²² Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Vermont and Director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility. Burlington, Vermont
²³ Director of Clinical Research, Hudson Institute of Medical Research; Consultant Endocrinologist, Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne, Australia
²⁴ Allan L. Drash Endowed Chair, Chief, Division of Endocrinology and Diabetes, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Professor of Pediatrics and Cell Biology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA
²⁵ Professor of Medicine, Knight Cardiovascular Institute and the Division of Endocrinology, and Associate Director, Bob and Charlee Moore Institute for Nutrition and Wellness, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR
²⁶ Centro de Investigaciones Endocrinológicas “Dr. César Bergadá” (CEDIE), CONICET-FEI-División de Endocrinología, Hospital de Niños Ricardo Gutiérrez, Gallo 1330, C1425EFD Buenos Aires; and Departamento de Histología, Biología Celular, Embriología y Genética, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Buenos Aires, C1121ABG Buenos Aires, Argentina
²⁷ Professor and Head of Department of Endocrinology, Osmania Medical College and Osmania General Hospital, Hyderabad, India.
²⁸ Professor of Pediatrics, The University of Cincinnati, Department of Pediatrics and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Division of Endocrinology, Cincinnati, OH, USA
²⁹ Director of the Endocrine/Bone Disease Program, Saint Johns Cancer Institute at Saint John’s Health Center, Santa Monica, CA; Clinical Professor of Medicine, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA
³⁰ Professorial Lecturer, Division of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY. Emeritus Professor and Chair, Department of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh.
³¹ CSO, ELPEN, Inc. & Director, Research Institute, Athens, Greece & Senior Investigator, Human Genetics & Precision Medicine, FORTH (ITE), Heraklion, Greece. Emeritus Scientific Director & Senior Investigator, NICHD, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
³² Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
³³ Endowed Chair, Cardiovascular Health and Risk Prevention, Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes, Cook Children's Medical Center, Fort Worth, TX

PMID: 27809446
Bookshelf ID: NBK395585

Excerpt

Adult growth hormone deficiency (GHD) is a clinical syndrome that can manifest either as isolated or associated with additional pituitary hormone deficiencies. Its clinical features are subtle and nonspecific, requiring GH stimulation testing to arrive at a correct diagnosis. However, diagnosing adult GHD can be challenging due to the episodic and pulsatile endogenous GH secretion, concurrently modified by age, gender, and body mass index. Hence, a GH stimulation test is often required to establish the diagnosis, and should only be considered if there is a clinical suspicion of GHD and the intention to treat if the diagnosis is confirmed. Currently, there is no ideal stimulation test and the decision to perform a GH stimulation test must factor in the validity of the chosen test, the appropriate GH cut-points, and the availability of local resources and expertise. For now, the insulin tolerance test remains the gold standard test, while the glucagon stimulation test and macimorelin test are reasonable alternatives to the insulin tolerance test, whereas the arginine test is no longer recommended because arginine is a poor GH secretagogue that requires a very low peak GH cut-point of 0.4 μg/L. In this chapter, we discuss published evidence of the GH stimulation tests used in the United States and the inherent caveats and limitations of each individual test. We propose utilizing the lower GH cut-point to 1μg/L for the glucagon stimulation test to improve its diagnostic accuracy in some overweight and all obese patients based on the clinical suspicion of having adult GHD, and summarize current knowledge and change of status of availability of the oral macimorelin test in the United States. For complete coverage of all related areas of Endocrinology, please visit our on-line FREE web-text, WWW.ENDOTEXT.ORG.

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