All issues > Volume 36(2); 1993

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1993;36(2):185-194. Published online February 15, 1993.

The Effect of Long-Term Corticosteroid Treatment on Height Velocity in Childhood

Byung Mun BM Lee¹, Chan Yung CY Kim¹

¹Department of Pediatrics, Pusan National University, College of Medicine, Pusan, Korea

Abstract

The auther analysed 29 patients who were treated with prednisolone, including nephrotic syndrome(13 cases). Acute leukemia (10 cases), bronchial asthma(2 cases), juvenile rheumatoid arthritis(2 cases) and ulcerative colitis(1 cases) patients in childhood, after remission induction, prolonged alternate or interrupted treatment was used. The auther observed patterns of height velocity of these patients from 1.6 to 10.3 years. The results were as follow 1) Of the total 29 patients who were treated with prednisolone, most of them showed normal height velocity within the percentile channels, but 4 cases(13.8%) of them showed delay in height velocity. 2) The 4 cases who delayed in height velocity, including 2 cases of bronchial asthma and 2 cases 6 years alternatively or interruptedly. Height velocity was decreased from between 3 and 25 percentile channel at first to below 3 percentile channel at last contiously. 3) In these 4 cases, height velocity was inversely proportion to dosage of prednisolone.

Keywords :Corticosteroid treatment, Short stature, Height velocity