EFFECT OF HEIGHT INDEXES AND EPILEPTIC DISCHARGES ONGROWTH HORMONEWITH IDIOPATHIC EPILEPSY

Hui Liu¹, Lianjun Gao¹, Hui Wang¹, Hongfang Ding¹, Leisheng Wang¹, Weiwei Mou¹, Peng Yu^{2, *}

¹Department of Pediatrics, Shengli Oilfield Central Hospital, Dongying, 257000,Shandong Province, China - ²Department of Child Healthcare, Shengli Oilfield Central Hospital, Dongying, 257000, Shandong Province, China

Objective: The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of height indexes and epileptic discharges growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1)in children patients with idiopathic epilepsy (IE).

Methods: 52 IE children patients admitted to our hospital were selected as a study group, in which their general data and levels of GH and IGF-1 under children's fasting conditions were compared with those in the control group. The children patients in the study group were divided by theirstature, with the control group as reference, and electroencephalogram (EEG) examination and GH provocation test were performed to explore the relationship between the discharge sites as well as indexes and the short stature. 

Results: The average height in children patients’ stocking in the study group was significantly lower than that in the control group (P<0.001), and there were 42 children patients in the study group with short or shorter than normal stature, which was significantly more than those with normal or higher than normal stature (P<0.001). There were no significant differences in the occurrence rate of short stature of the children patients undergoing discharge at different sites in the study group (P>0.05), and the occurrence rate of short stature was significantly higher in the study group with discharge indexes of more than 55% (Z = -2.856, P<0.05). There were significant differences in the levels of GH and IGF-1 between the two groups (P < 0.001), and in the study group the positive rate of 86.5% in the GH provocation test with clonidine was significantly higher than that with arginine, with statistically significant differences (P<0.05). 

Conclusions: The height of IE children is generally lower than that of normal children. There is no significant association between the discharge sites and the height, but the discharge indexes show a negative correlation with the height. Plus, epileptic discharges can cause abnormal levels of GH and IGF-1 in children patients, which should be further studied in the clinical practice.