Tolerance of the oral clonidine test in 75 pediatric patients.

We evaluated the tolerance and effectiveness of the oral clonidine test for GH in 75 children, 84% with hyposomia and 16% with other diseases. The test was well tolerated, since 97% of the examined children had no side effects with the exception of occasional drowsiness, pallor and myosis of short duration. Two of the children at the end of the test, had more severe symptoms 30 min after (deep asthenia, pallor and a further small blood pressure drop) which however, resolved after 4-6 h. No correlation was observed between the clinical picture and the drops in blood pressure and/or plasma cortisol in the children examined. We confirm the effectiveness of the clonidine test in the release of GH since in our study we observed no negative false subnormal responses.