I. Choice of hospital In general, children with dwarfism and precocious puberty should choose a regular hospital with children’s endocrinology or a specialty in dwarfism and precocious puberty so as to conduct systematic endocrine examination for their children.
What are the details that parents need to explain to the attending doctor during the consultation of dwarfism and precocious puberty?
1. the pregnancy and delivery of the mother, especially whether the child had a history of hypoxia at birth; 2. the time when the child was found to be short or had symptoms of precocious puberty, the late progress and the height growth in the past year; 3. the time of the child’s birth, the height/weight at birth, especially whether the child was short at 1 week of age is of some significance in terms of diagnosis; 4. the child’s diet, sleep, exercise, intelligence, etc., and the presence of 5. parents’ height, history of early or late development and height of other members in the family; 6. family history of tumor, diabetes, genetic disease, etc.; 7. previous medical consultations and related test results and treatment (bring the child’s case and previous test results). The results of the tests should be brought along.)
There are many causes of dwarfism, and in order to treat it, we must find out the cause and make a correct diagnosis, and then consider how to treat it. In order to find out the cause of the disease, we must firstly, through medical history, physical examination, and laboratory examination, analyze and judge the cause of dwarfism based on detailed information and laboratory results, and finally determine the treatment plan.
For children with short stature, first of all, we need to take an x-ray (bone age film) of the left wrist and metacarpal finger to understand the bone age, determine the growth of the bones, the degree of epiphyseal closure (if the epiphysis is closed, there is no possibility of treatment) and the growth potential of the child. The actual adult height will often be lower than the predicted height, and the predicted height is not accurate when the difference between bone age and age is large, but at least we can know the approximate range and make a comparison before and after treatment in order to evaluate the efficacy).