Effects of 3-year growth hormone (GH) replacement therapy on bonemineral density in younger and elderly adults with adult onset GH deficiency.

• Objective: Little is known of the effects of long-term GH replacement on bone mineral content (BMC) and bone mineral density (BMD) in elderly GH deficient (GHD) adults.Design/Patients/Methods: In this prospective, single-centre, open-label study, the effects of 3-year GH replacement were determined in 45 GHD patients above 65 years of age and in 45 younger control GHD patients with a mean age of 39.5 (SEM 1.1) years. All patients had adult onset disease and both groups were comparable in terms of number of anterior pituitary hormonal deficiencies, gender, body mass index (BMI), and waist:hip ratio.Results: The mean maintenance dose of GH was 0.24 (0.02) mg/day in the elderly patients and 0.33 (0.02) mg/day in the younger GHD patients (p<0.01). The three years of GH replacement induced a marginal effect on total body BMC and BMD whereas femur neck and lumbar (L2-L4) spine BMC and BMD increased in both the elderly and the younger patients. The treatment response in femur neck BMC was less marked in the elderly patients (p<0.05 vs. younger group). However, this difference disappeared after correction for the lower dose of GH in the elderly patients using an analysis of covariance. There were no between-group differences in responsiveness in BMC or BMD at other skeletal locations.Conclusions: This study shows that GH replacement increases lumbar (L2-L4) spine and femur neck BMD and BMC in younger as well as elderly GHD patients. This supports that long-term GH replacement is useful also in elderly GHD patients.

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