Association between the onset age of puberty and parental height.

Background: The onset age of physiological puberty is greatly variable. This variability has been attributed to environmental factors and to genetic factors although a very little is explained by genome-wide associations studies. Previously, we reported the existence of an association between the onset age of puberty and final height.

Age of onset of a normally timed pubertal growth spurt affects the final height of children.

Background: The exact nature of the relationship between the age of onset of puberty and final height in normally maturing children is controversial. Some authors have claimed that the age of pubertal onset does not affect final height, and others have claimed the opposite. We hypothesized that both height and the age of onset of the pubertal growth spurt (PGS) are correlated to final height.

Pubertal gynecomastia coincides with peak height velocity.

Objective: Pubertal gynecomastia (PG) occurs in up to 65% of adolescent boys. In this study, we investigated the relationship between the ages at which PG and peak height velocity occur in pubertal boys.

Methods: This was a prospective study that was designed to detect PG within three months of its emergence.

Ethnic and gender inequities in the evaluation of referred short children.

Aims: To examine ethnicity and gender differences in the evaluation of referred children with short stature and to investigate adherence of the primary care evaluation to published guidelines.

Methods: Cross-sectional study in a referral center. 371 short patients aged 2-18 years were included.

BeMORE: a novel method for detection of adverse fetal effects induced by drugs.

We describe a unique new collaboration which allows linkage of administrative databases in Southern Israel, and hence ascertain risk/safety of prescription drugs in pregnancy. The advantages of this system include availability of rigorous data confounders, solid data on maternal conditions for which the drug is given, ability to capture all cases of elective abortions and not just live births, and ability to construct drug doses.

Hypoparathyroidism, retardation, and dysmorphism syndrome: impaired early growth and increased susceptibility to severe infections due to hyposplenism and impaired polymorphonuclear cell functions.

Hypoparathyroidism, retardation, and dysmorphism (HRD) syndrome is the first reported disease caused by a defect in the tubulin folding and assembly pathway. We aimed to summarize our experience with a cohort of patients with HRD, analyze their growth, and evaluate patients' polymorphonuclear cell (PMN) functions. The records of 22 HRD patients in a single medical center were reviewed.

[Should a minor, unattended by a parent, be given medical services? Use of an algorithm to critique the Israel Ministry of Health regulations].

Background: Parents are the natural custodians of their children, thus minors need parental approval to receive medical services. In February 2004, the Israel Ministry of Health issued a set of regulations titled "Visits of unaccompanied minors to primary care clinics", aimed at assisting primary care clinicians in their decision-making process on this sensitive issue.

Aims: (1) To convert the above mentioned regulations into an algorithmic format in order to facilitate their use by community clinicians, and (2) To review and critique the regulations, using the process of algorithm conversion.

The childhood component of the ICP model is appropriate for growth analysis of short Israeli children.

Objective: To determine whether the childhood component of the infancy-childhood-puberty (ICP) model is appropriate for growth analysis of short Israeli children.

Subjects And Methods: From 204 short, prepubertal children, 2-16 years of age, 1,516 height measurements were analyzed. For each child's measurements, a best-fitted line based on C equation of ICP has been drawn and the distribution of measurement points around that line was calculated.

[Warning labels on medications--influence of warning labels and physicians' orders on patient behavior].

Compliance of 40 mothers with a warning label, "for external use," on a medicine package was checked in a survey in a primary care clinic for children. We also checked parents' attitudes to giving a medicine to their child when instructions given by the physician or by a friend contradicted the printed warning on the label. All mothers who were told that the medicine was recommended by their physicians accepted the recommendation without hesitation.

Increase of serum lipoprotein (a) levels during growth hormone therapy in normal short children.

Unlabelled: We studied the effect of growth hormone (GH) therapy on serum lipoprotein levels and the atherogenic index in short children without GH deficiency. Fasting blood samples were collected from ten (eight males) normal, short, prepubertal children, aged 6-12 years, before, during a 1-year course of GH therapy (0.1 IU/Kg/day), and 3 months after the cessation of GH administration.

Final height prediction models for pubertal boys.

Accurate adult height prediction is of clinical importance in assessing the need for pharmacological intervention and in the evaluation of the outcome of therapy. The methods currently in use are subject to a wide range of error, one source of which is the use of bone age (BA) measurements. We have developed a computer model for predicting adult height in pubertal boys without using BA determinations.

Short-term growth hormone therapy increases serum lipoprotein (a) levels in normal short children without growth hormone deficiency.

We investigated the short-term effect of GH (0.1 IU/kg/day) on serum lipoprotein (a) [Lp(a)] in 8 normal short children aged 6-12 years. GH increased serum Lp(a) concentrations in all the children studied.

Improved method for predicting adult height of pubertal boys using a mathematical model.

Several methods for adult height prediction are currently in use. All are subject to a wide range of error which is thought to result, at least in part, from the use of bone age estimation. Following the suggestion made by Karlberg to predict adult height of pubertal children by the use of the 'Infancy-Childhood-Puberty model' (ICP), growth data of 39 normal boys who were followed from infancy until adult height was attained were reviewed.