Question
A ten-year-old girl stands at just 114 cm tall and weighs 45 pounds. She has a proportional but slightly short stature. She struggles with concentration in school, lacks self-discipline, and is very playful. Teachers have reported that she works slowly on assignments and with arithmetic, and her grades are average. The parents are concerned about the child’s growth situation. They had checked her growth hormone at the age of six, and the result was normal, but her bone age was lower than her actual age. The parents want to know how to handle this situation.
Answer
Short stature can be caused by various factors, including growth hormone deficiency, hypothyroidism, idiopathic short stature, constitutional growth delay, skeletal developmental disorders, and certain genetic metabolic diseases. For the treatment of short stature, it is first necessary to determine the cause. It is recommended to consult an endocrinology department for examinations such as bone age X-rays, head pituitary MRI, growth hormone levels, and thyroid function tests to treat the underlying cause. If diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency, growth hormone injections may be considered to promote height increase.