C H A P T E R 3 the growth response was negatively correlated with chronological age and height SDS, and positively correlated with target height SDS, rhGH dose (IU/kg/week) and frequency of GH injections. In this study only GHD children are examined. Furtado et al.18 found the same response in SGA children. In this study rhGH therapy was associated with a first year height increment of 0.67 SDS (p < 0.01). Ranke et al found the following results for small for gestational age children, treated with GH treatment: Mean height velocity was 8.7 and 7.0 cm/year, corresponding to a height increment of 0.7 and 0.3 SD scores, in the first and second year of GH treatment, respectively19. The rhGH dose which was given in our study is 35 microgram/kilogram for GHD and for SGA children. When taking the cut off value of 0.7 SDS for granted, we found the best results at a cut off value of 0.7 l/m2 for the change in body composition, because at this level the number of correct predictions was the highest. In the pre-‐ vious study of Hoos et al.13, the best result was found at a cut off value of 0.9 l/m2 for the change in body composition. Statistics We used a cut off value of 0.7 l/m2 for the change in body composition, because at this level the highest and the maximum sensitivity and specificity was reached. This value has been detected by calculating the sensitivity and specificity for different cut off values. Sensitivity was calculated by: Number of true positives / (Number of true positives + Number of false negatives). Specificity was calculated by: Number of true nega-‐ tives / (Number of true negatives + Number of false positives). Two sample t-‐tests were used to evaluate differences between two groups. Results In total 192 children were included, of which five patients dropped out because they stopped treatment due to poor compliance or did not appear on appointments. Of the remaining 187 patients, 88 patients were GHD and 99 were SGA. Patient characteristics are given in Table 1. The children were divided into two groups according to their diagnosis. There was an increase in height of 0.832 and 0.874 SDS after one year of treatment in respectively the GHD and the SGA children, which is not significantly different. The body composition according to the calcula-‐ tion of TBW divided by height2 in SGA children was significantly lower compared to the GHD children (9.02 l/m2 and 9.6 l/m2, p < 0.001). The change in body composi-‐ tion within the GHD group was 0.94 and within the SGA children the change in body 48
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