National Cooperative Growth Study (NCGS) is the largest observational database in the U.S. of children with

growth disorders Growth hormone therapy refers to the use of growth hormone (GH) as a prescription medication—it is one form of hormone therapy. Growth hormone is a peptide hormone secreted by the pituitary gland that stimulates growth and cell reproduction. I ...

. Started in 1985, NCGS was a long term

longitudinal study A longitudinal study (or longitudinal survey, or panel study) is a research design that involves repeated observations of the same variables (e.g., people) over short or long periods of time (i.e., uses longitudinal data). It is often a type of obs ...

following patients undergoing

growth hormone Growth hormone (GH) or somatotropin, also known as human growth hormone (hGH or HGH) in its human form, is a peptide hormone that stimulates growth, cell reproduction, and cell regeneration in humans and other animals. It is thus important in h ...

treatment in North America (the U.S. and Canada). The study was closed in 2010. At that time it had over 200,000 patient-years of statistical data collected. The related iNCGS (the "i" standing for "International") database is ongoing in Europe, collecting data in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and other European Union member countries.

Sources

* *{{ClinicalTrialsGov, NCT00455728, A Post Marketing Surveillance Program for NutropinAq® in Paediatric Growth Disorders (iNCGS) Growth hormones