[Use of arginine hydrochloride in non-endocrine growth disorders].

We have examined a group composed of 60 short prepubertal children (height less than 3 degrees centile; 31 M, 29 F, age from 4.17-10.5 years) with a decreased height velocity (less than 10 degrees centile) and in which endocrine, systemic or specific causes of short stature have been ruled out by the performance of several instrumental or laboratory analyses. Auxological features of a 12-month period (from time -12 to time 0) without any treatment ("off" period) have been compared with an immediately following 12-month period (from time 0 to time +12), during which hydrochloride arginine was administered ("on" period); 2 phials per day in subjects older than 6 years and 1 phial per day in those less old than 6 years. In the absence of the pubertal development, height changed from -1.95 +/- 0.29 (m +/- 1 SD) standard deviation scores (SDS) at time -12 to -2.17 +/- 0.28 SDS at time 0 and -2.24 +/- 0.29 SDS at time +12 with a variation of -0.22 +/- 0.09 SDS in "off" period and of -0.07 +/- 0.14 SDS in "on" period (p less than 0.001) and therefore a difference between the two periods of 0.16 +/- 0.13 SDS. Height age (HA)/chronological age (CA) ratio was 0.74 +/- 0.05, 0.73 +/- 0.04 e 0.73 +/- 0.04, at time -12, 0 and +12, respectively. Height velocity changed from 4.18 +/- 0.47 cm/yr, -1.84 +/- 0.45 SDS for CA and -2.07 +/- 0.41 SDS for bone age (BA) during "off" period to 4.72 +/- 0.74 cm/yr, -1.05 +/- 0.83 SDS for CA and -1.31 +/- 0.77 SDS for BA during "on" period (p less than 0.001) with a variation of 0.53 +/- 0.56 cm/yr, 0.78 +/- 0.65 SDS for CA and 0.77 +/- 0.69 SDS for BA. BA resulted 6.57 +/- 1.55 years at time 0 and 7.34 +/- 1.54 years at time +12; HA/BA ratio changed from 0.86 +/- 0.07 at time 0 to 0.88 +/- 0.07 at time +12 (p less than 0.01) with a ratio between the two values of 1.01 +/- 0.02. Height and height velocity did not result statistically different between males and females or between subjects with delayed BA and those with non-delayed BA, while HA/BA ratio resulted significantly higher in the subjects with non-delayed BA than in those with delayed BA.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)