Idiopathic An idiopathic disease is any disease with an unknown cause or mechanism of apparent wikt:spontaneous, spontaneous origin. From Ancient Greek, Greek ἴδιος ''idios'' "one's own" and πάθος ''pathos'' "suffering", ''idiopathy'' means approxi ...

short stature (ISS) refers to extreme

short stature Short stature refers to a height of a human which is below typical. Whether a person is considered short depends on the context. Because of the lack of preciseness, there is often disagreement about the degree of shortness that should be called '' ...

that does not have a

diagnostic Diagnosis is the identification of the nature and cause of a certain phenomenon. Diagnosis is used in many different disciplines, with variations in the use of logic, analytics, and experience, to determine " cause and effect". In systems engine ...

explanation (''idiopathic'' designates a condition that is unexplained or not understood) after an ordinary

growth evaluation Growth may refer to: Biology * Auxology, the study of all aspects of human physical growth * Bacterial growth * Cell growth * Growth hormone, a peptide hormone that stimulates growth * Human development (biology) * Plant growth * Secondary growt ...

. The term has been in use since at least 1975 without a precise percentile or statistical definition of "extreme".

Diagnosis

Definition

In 2003

Eli Lilly and Company Eli Lilly and Company is an American pharmaceutical company headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, with offices in 18 countries. Its products are sold in approximately 125 countries. The company was founded in 1876 by, and named after, Colonel ...

offered a more precise definition of ISS when the pharmaceutical company submitted clinical trial data to the U.S.

Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respon ...

(FDA) requesting approval to advertise their brand of

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 ...

for the treatment of ISS. They proposed a definition of a height more than 2.25 standard deviations below mean, roughly equal to the shortest 1.2% of the population. Other researchers have described a cutoff of 2.0 standard deviations.

Treatment

There is some evidence that hormone treatment may not result in a significant improvement in psychosocial functioning. It is estimated that it would cost US$100,000 or more to treat someone, but might only move them from the first percentile to perhaps the 10th. There is some ethical and economic concern whether such treatment would merely shift discrimination to the next most effected percentile. The use of

insulin-like growth factor 1 Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), also called somatomedin C, is a hormone similar in molecular structure to insulin which plays an important role in childhood growth, and has anabolic effects in adults. IGF-1 is a protein that in humans is ...

aromatase inhibitors Aromatase inhibitors (AIs) are a class of drugs used in the treatment of breast cancer in postmenopausal women and in men, and gynecomastia in men. They may also be used off-label to reduce estrogen conversion when supplementing testosterone exog ...

have been proposed as an alternative to growth hormone.

Advantage

Short stature decreases risk of venous insufficiency.

References

External links