Can boys have precocious puberty too?

  We have a good understanding of precocious puberty in girls, such as breast development in girls before the age of 8 and menstruation before the age of 10 should be considered precocious, but the concept of precocious puberty in boys is still a bit vague, can boys also have precocious puberty?  Xiao Ming is a boy less than 10 years old, very handsome, 140 cm tall, very good academic performance, but recently parents found that the child is a little trance when studying, performance has decreased, asked the child what is wrong, the child refused to say, parents anxious, took the child to Hengyang Women and Children’s Health Hospital growth and development clinic and found me. Through a comprehensive physical examination, it was found that the child’s pubic hair had reached the adult type, and there was also spermatorrhea, and the bone age was two years ahead of the age of 12. I repeatedly asked the parents when the child first appeared, and the parents of the child said with great guilt that they only focused on the child’s studies and did not pay good attention to this aspect of development. Through a series of standardized tests such as sex hormones, the child was diagnosed with true precocious puberty, which required further treatment.  In general, girls usually develop secondary sexual characteristics, such as breast development and pubic hair growth, at the age of about 10. Menstruation, etc. In boys, secondary sexual characteristics such as testicular development and beard growth begin to appear at the age of 12-13 years. The concept of precocious puberty in boys is that testicular development begins to appear before the age of 9. Precocious puberty in boys is more likely to be overlooked until the voice changes, the beard or the throat knot appears and parents are concerned that the development is generally longer.  Precocious puberty can cause both psychological and physical harm to children, who may have low self-esteem, fear and anxiety because they are different in size and appearance from their surrounding peers. Premature menstruation in girls often affects normal life and studies. Boys may develop a tendency for early love and premature sexual behavior. Because of the accelerated skeletal growth of precocious children, although they seem to grow faster than others for the time being, the parts that are going to grow later are grown earlier, and the more ahead of time, the faster the height growth stops and the shorter they will be when they grow up. This is the reason why Xiao Ming’s bone age is obviously two years ahead. Although 140 cm is a more ideal height for a boy of 9 years old, the final adult height may not be ideal due to precocious bone age.  Pseudo-precocious puberty generally does not require special treatment after diagnosis, and the symptoms may subside after a period of observation, but close follow-up is required, and it may change to true. True precocious puberty is currently clinically recommended for gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogue treatment, which can stop the development of secondary sexual characteristics and also delay the progression of bone age and improve lifelong height.  The vast majority of precocious puberty can be cured, but early detection and timely treatment is very important. With early detection and timely treatment, patients with precocious puberty can achieve normal psychological status and desired adult height, and the earlier the treatment, the better the results.  So the development of boys cannot be ignored, parents should not only focus on their children’s studies, but also on their children’s development, because boys can also have precocious puberty!