ESPE Abstracts

Background: Since the publication of international growth charts by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2006, the use of national growth charts for growth monitoring (GM) has been questioned.Objective and hypotheses: To evaluate the potential impact of using WHO vs. national growth charts on the performance of a clinical decision rule for detecting children with one of the target conditions of GM: GH deficiency (GHD).Method: In ...

Background: In industrialised countries, the main goal of growth monitoring (GM) of apparently healthy children is the early detection of severe underlying conditions. However, empirical evidence suggests globally poor performances of GM, with important diagnosis delays for priority target conditions and many unnecessary referrals for diagnostic work-up for disease-free children.Objective and hypotheses: To evaluate and to compare the performance for ear...

Background: Growth monitoring of apparently healthy children aims at early detection of severe underlying conditions. Strong empirical evidence shows that current practices of growth monitoring are suboptimal. Practice standardisation with validated tools requires answering two questions: Which conditions should be targeted? How should abnormal growth be defined?Objective and hypotheses: To obtain consensus on a short list of priority target conditions o...