Aims
To observe the safety and effectiveness of recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) replacement therapy (GHRT) in postoperative craniopharyngioma (CP) children.
Subjects and methods
We reviewed the records for all patients undergoing GHRT at our hospital over the study period. Patients were included if they had received CP resection, GHRT for at least 12 months, and records of serial magnetic resonance imaging data and data for treatment, pituitary hormone profiles and growth chart were available. GH-naïve control patients were selected from our hospital database of patients carried out the same surgery. Patients were matched for date of surgery, age, site of primary diagnosis and sex.
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Results
18 patients were recruited with growth hormone deficiency. In treatment group, all patients all gained acceleration in growth velocity and elevated growth factors level. There were no recurrent tumors found in both groups.
Conclusions
Our study demonstrates no increased risk for recurrent in patients receiving GHRT, thus supporting a high safety profile of GHRT in postoperative craniopharyngioma children. Additionally, GHRT can provide a significantly change in growth velocity compared with control group.
This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.