Investigation of growth factor and regulators in children with short stature

Short stature is a term defined to a child whose height is -2 standard deviations (SD) or more below the mean for children of that sex and chronologic age and ideally of the same population group. The main objectives of the study is to determine serum levels of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 3 (IGFBP-3), fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF-21), sirtuin-1 (SIRT-1) and visfatin and to identify anthropometric traits in children assigned into three groups; children of short stature receiving growth hormone treatment, children of short stature with no treatment and control groups. There are a total of 75 boys in the present study 25 in each group. The age of boys is 10 ±3 years. The boys were selected from volunteers and their ages were ranging from 7 to 13 years. The children whose height is 2 standard deviation or more below the average height were accepted as short stature and those higher than –2 SD were included in control group. Serum levels of IGF-1 and IGFBP-3 were detected by using chemiluminescence immunometric method and serum levels of FGF-21, SIRT-1 and visfatin were measured using ELISA method. According to the data obtained in the current study, the serum levels of IGF-1 and IGFBP-3, SIRT-1 and visfatin were significantly lower in children of short stature with no treatment group than those in control and children of short stature receiving growth hormone treatment group (p<0,05). No significant difference was found between the three groups in terms of serum levels of FGF-21 (p>0,05). In conclusion, we think that levels of SIRT-1 and visfatin might be associated with short stature. Key words: IGF-1, IGFBP-3, FGF21, SIRT1, visfatin