What tests are needed for precocious puberty

  1. Bone age: For children with precocious puberty, detailed assessment of bone age and prediction of adult height is required. At the beginning of precocious puberty, the predicted height is often not low, also because the predicted height can only be predicted according to the normal growth trajectory, and children with precocious puberty are unable to grow according to the normal growth pattern because of the premature puberty onset and the short growth period, so they will often be significantly lower than the predicted height at the beginning without treatment, but detailed assessment of bone age and predicted adult height is very important for the selection of treatment plan and the correct adjustment of the dose of gonadotropin-releasing hormone analog (GnRHa). It is very important to know the approximate range of predicted height in order to choose a more reasonable treatment plan.  2. Sex hormone levels: Generally, the six sex hormones should be checked, including at least FSH, LH and E2, and some children with precocious puberty also need to be checked for alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) to rule out germ cell tumors. In addition, thyroxine level should be checked (hypothyroidism can cause precocious puberty).  3.B ultrasound examination: breast, uterus, ovary, follicle size (or boy’s testicle size, the doctor can check) to determine the sexual development; also need to check adrenal function or ultrasound (to exclude precocious puberty caused by adrenal cortex hyperplasia or tumor, etc., adrenal gland can also secrete sex hormones).  4.Head MRI: Since pituitary gland is the endocrine center, especially for those who suspect central precocious puberty, pituitary magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) needs to be checked.  5.GnRH excitation test: For those who consider the possibility of true (central) precocious puberty, especially those who need to consider GnRHa treatment, except for a few who have reached the standard of not needing to do GnRH excitation test, GnRH excitation test (which can be referred to as sex hormone excitation test) is needed to clarify whether it is true precocious puberty. For those who have a high probability of pseudoprematurity or who are not considering GnRHa treatment for the time being, GnRH stimulation test may not be done for the time being. Because, if the excitation shows pseudosexuality, it does not mean that it is still pseudosexual after a few months, and the excitation needs to be repeated at a later stage. In order to reduce the child’s pain or unnecessary examination, it may not be done temporarily, but it must be reviewed regularly, as pseudoprematurity may turn into true at any time, and the vast majority of them will eventually turn into true, just for a short or long time, otherwise the child will not be able to develop.  6.Growth hormone stimulation test and IGF: For those who need to consider combined growth hormone therapy or use growth hormone therapy because of the bone age is too large for the application of GnRHa and for those who consider single growth hormone therapy because of the bone age is large and the predicted height is not low and GnRHa alone cannot improve the lifetime height and the need of combined therapy is not much, the unchecked part of the required examination items for children with dwarfism should also be checked. In particular, growth hormone stimulation test and IGF, etc. Without knowing the growth hormone level, it is not possible to determine the growth hormone dose more rationally. A recent study has shown that adjusting the growth hormone dose by monitoring the IGF level is more effective than the traditional fixed dose.