During puberty a child’s body matures into the body of an adult. During this process pathological faults can occur. An early onset of puberty might, for example, cause dwarfism. Psychological stress of the patients is not negligible and should be taken into consideration in medical consultation. The following article provides soon-to-be physicians with a summary of puberty and its malfunctions,...

A 7-yr-old girl presented with isosexual precocious puberty secondary to a feminizing adrenal adenoma. The adrenal tumor was found to express aromatase messenger ribonucleic acid. Enzyme kinetic studies revealed a high level of aromatase activity in the adrenal tumor, with a K(m) of 45 nmol/L and a maximum velocity of 25.6 pmol/mg.h. Aromatase activity was approximately 500-fold higher in the t...

Premature activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis manifests as gonadotropin-dependent precocious puberty. The mechanisms behind HPG activation are complex and a clear etiology for early activation is often not elucidated. Though collectively uncommon, the neoplastic and developmental causes of gonadotropin-dependent precocious puberty are very important to consider, as a del...

Result 1.Hospital-based prevalence in infants under the age of 2 years in 2009, 2010 and 2011 is 0.26‰, 0.40‰, 0.39‰ relatively. On average it’s 0.35‰. Period from July to September in every year is the peak time of doctor visiting. 2. Most (99.8%)of infants with premature thelarche are manifested as isolated premature thelarche, while only 0.2% are represented as peripheral precocious puberty....

BACKGROUND There are no absolute criteria for identifying those girls with idiopathic central precocious puberty (CPP) who will benefit from gonadotropin-releasing hormone analog (GnRHa) treatment. Our objective was to predict at initial evaluation the differences between adult height (AH) and target height (TH) and (for untreated girls) the time between puberty onset and first menstruation. ...

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) in pediatric and adolescent patients is rare, and it is associated with various clinical symptoms. We introduce the case of an 8-year-old boy with ACC who presented with peripheral precocious puberty at his first visit. He displayed penis enlargement with pubic hair and facial acne. His serum adrenal androgen levels were elevated, and abdominal computed tomography...

During puberty a child’s body matures into the body of an adult. During this process pathological faults can occur. An early onset of puberty might, for example, cause dwarfism. Psychological stress of the patients is not negligible and should be taken into consideration in medical consultation. The following article provides soon-to-be physicians with a summary of puberty and its malfunctions,...

BACKGROUND Central precocious puberty (CPP) is often familial but its genetic cause is largely unknown. Very recently, the makorin RING finger protein 3 (MKRN3) gene, located on chromosome 15 in the Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS)-associated region (15q11-q13), has been found mutated in 5 families with familial precocious puberty. The MKRN3 is a maternal imprinted gene and the phenotype is expresse...