Severe Decrease of Growth Velocity in Children With Anorexia Nervosa.Therapeutic Trial of Growth Hormone

Overview

Anorexia nervosa may be responsible for a catch- down or even an interruption of growth, delayed puberty and osteopenia with failure of acquisition of bone mass. The recovery of normal nutrition usually leads to a resumption of growth and pubertal development. However, despite a therapeutic nutritional and psychotherapeutic satisfactory approach, some patients have a significant short stature with reduced adult final height and a deficit of bone mass. The main objective is to evaluate the effect of growth hormone (hGH) treatment on the growth velocity in prepubertal children or children in early puberty with anorexia nervosa and significant reduction of height velocity. This is a single-center, controlled, randomized and double-blind clinical trial evaluating the efficacy of hGH treatment for 1 year against a placebo, on the growth velocity of prepubertal or children in early puberty with Anorexia nervosa and major catch-down.This period is followed by the evaluation of the hGH treatment in children receiving placebo and continued hGH treatment in the treatment arm for 1 year, in total 2 years of study for each child. This second period corresponds to an ethical consideration giving secondarily access to treatment for patients in the placebo group.

Patients will be evaluated at baseline and at 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21 and 24 months after the start of the trial. This evaluation will include a clinical evaluation and a biological (IGF-I, IGFBP-3, leptin, ghrelin, adiponectin, mineral metabolism, thyroid function, 24 hours urinary cortisol, as well as conventional electrolyte tolerance parameters), psychological and nutritional study body composition by absorptiometry at 0, 12 and 24 months. Evaluations will be conducted at the Center for Clinical Investigation at Hospital Robert Debre. The primary endpoint will be the linear growth rate 1 year after the start of the trial expressed in cm/1 year in the group with hGH compared to the placebo group. The secondary endpoints will be the height velocity expressed in SDS (standard deviation score), the data of body composition and psychological changes that will be assessed between the 2 arms at the end of the two years of the clinical trial. The data of body composition obtained by dual photon absorptiometry and biological data of mineral metabolism and growth factors are expressed in Z score compared to normal references that we have established in France, in healthy subjects according to age, gender and pubertal stage.