ESPE Abstracts

Introduction: We refer to precocious puberty when signs of puberty appear early: before the age of 8 in females and before the age of 9.5 in males. The objective of our study is to evaluate the interest of the LHRH test in the exploration of early puberty.

Materials and Methods: A retrospective descriptive study including 19 cases who presented with signs of precocious puberty. A clinical and hormonal evaluation was performed in all cases. The statistical analysis was performed by the software SPSS version 21.

Results: This study included 19 children; 17 girls and 2 boys, sex ratio M/F :0.11. The average age of the first consultation was 5 years and 8 months (1-9 years). The reasons for consultation were appearance of pilosity in 21.1% of cases, mammary development in 47.4%, appearance of pilosity associated to mammary development in 21.1% and occurrence of menarche in 10.5%. The LHRH test was performed in all patients. The results revealed a central origin in 31.6% of the patients with a peak LH between 12 and 71 IU/l and a FSH/LH ratio between 1.23 and 3.77. In 31.6% of patients, the diagnosis of peripheral precocious puberty was retained, the peak LH after LHRH test was between 0.25 and 4.2 IU/l with a FSH/LH ratio between 0.12 and 1.27 and a median peak FSH level at 5.8±3.7 IU/l. A dissociated precocious puberty was found in 36.8% of the girls with a mean age of 4 years (1-7 years), the LHRH test showed a peak of LH between 0.08 and 7.5 IU/l with a FSH/LH ratio at 0.23 on average and a median peak FSH level at 20.6±9.4IU/l.

Discussion and Conclusion: Precocious puberty can be the manifestation of a significant pathological illness, either central or peripheral. Premature thelarche can be regarded as variant of regular puberty in girls, which is why LHRH testing is used to distinguish between a true precocious puberty and its variants.