All issues > Volume 34(3); 1991

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1991;34(3):334-339. Published online March 31, 1991.

Clinical effects of yeast derived recombinant methionyl growth hormone in growth hormone deficiency.

Byung Churl Lee¹

¹Department of Pediatrics, Catholic University Medical College, Seoul, Korea

Received: January 27, 1991;  Accepted: February 5, 1991.

Abstract

Since the success of human growth hormone (hGH) synthesis by recombinant DNA technology, these GH products are used in the treatment of growth hormone deficiency. Recently, methionyl-GH has been produced in the yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae 2150 by the use of a recombinant method. In this paper, the clinical efficacy and. immunogenicity of this GH was studied during therapy of 1 year in 20 children with naive GH deficiency. The subjects of this study are aged 4.5-14.3 years, diagnosed by failure of plasma GH to respond to insulin-induced hypoglycemia, arginine and/or clonidine loading and height below-2 standard deviation of mean for their chronological age. Each patient received GH 0.45 IU/kg/week intramusculary in 3 divided dose. During treatment, vital signs, height, body weight and bone age were checked. Blood count, urinalysis, blood chemistry and measurement of thyroid hormone were performed before and every 3 months, measurement of IGF-I were performed before and every 6 months and assay of antibody against hGH were performed before and 1 year treatment. The height velocity during 1 year treatment ranged from 5.1 to 12.4 cm/year, with a mean of 7. 8±1.9 cm/year. Their previous height velocity was 2.9+1.1 cm/year. The increments in height age and bone age were 1.4±0.3 and 1.2±0.2 year during 1 year treat- ment. During treatment, mean plasma IGF-I levels rose significantly in the all patients. Antibody against hGH was observed in 3 of the 16 patients (18.8%) and unwanted side effects were not observed in any of the 20 patients. These results suggest that this yeast derived recombinant methionyl growth hormone is very effective in stimulating linear growth in growth hormone deficiency.

Keywords :Growth hormone;growth hormone deficiency