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Clonidine and glucagon stimulation for testing growth hormone secretion in children and adolescents: Can we make it with fewer samples?

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Abstract

Background: Our aim was to retrospectively evaluate the possibility to reduce the number of GH analyses during clonidine and glucagon tests without compromising accuracy. Subjects and methods: Two hundred and forty-five tests were performed in a total of 188 children and adolescents with a mean age of 9.93±2.88 yr in a single center during the last 5 yr. Results: Ninety-one out of 158 (57.59%) clonidine tests and 47/87 (54.02%) glucagon tests had at least one sample >10 µg/l (negative). For clonidine tests, not measuring GH at 30 min would have resulted in only one negative test missed (0.63% false positive result), whereas not measuring GH both at 0 and 30 min would have increased the false positive percentage to 2.53%. Ending clonidine tests at 90 min would have resulted in 7 negative tests missed (4.43% false positive results). For glucagon tests, more than half of the tests peaked at 120 min (56.32%). Skipping sampling at 0, 60 and 180 min provided a false positive rate of 5.75%. Conclusions: For clonidine tests we can omit blood sampling at time points 0 and 30 min without significantly compromising accuracy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1st Paediatric Department, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece

    A. Christoforidis PhD, P. Triantafyllou & G. Katzos

  2. Hormone Assay Laboratory, Department of Biochemistry, Ippokratio General Hospital, Thessaloniki, Greece

    A. Slavakis

Authors
  1. A. Christoforidis PhD
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  2. P. Triantafyllou
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  3. A. Slavakis
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  4. G. Katzos
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Correspondence to A. Christoforidis PhD.

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Christoforidis, A., Triantafyllou, P., Slavakis, A. et al. Clonidine and glucagon stimulation for testing growth hormone secretion in children and adolescents: Can we make it with fewer samples?. J Endocrinol Invest 36, 1046–1050 (2013). https://doi.org/10.3275/9061

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.3275/9061

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