Growth and development of adolescent patients with Cushing's syndrome.

Objective: To elucidate the growth and development of patients with Cushing's syndrome (CS) in adolescence.

Methods: We analyzed the clinical data of 19 patients aged under 18 with CS. We divided the patients into two groups according to the height at diagnosis. The patients under the 3rd percentile were in the short stature group (n=12), and the others in the non-short stature group (n=7). The intergroup differences in disease course, age of onset, and 24-hour urinary free cortisol were analyzed.

Results: The median age at diagnosis was 13 years. The median disease course was 0.9 years. All those patients presented with typical clinical characteristics of CS. Twelve cases (63.2%) were in short stature group. The disease course of the short stature group was found significantly longer than that of the non-short stature group [(2.7∓1.7) years vs. (0.8∓0.6) years, P=0.013], but no significant difference was found in the age of onset (P=0.530) or 24-hour urinary free cortisol (P=0.919) between the two groups.

Conclusions: The data suggest that short stature is common in adolescent CS patients. The growth delay may be correlated to the disease course of CS.