The child with precocious puberty.

Precocious puberty can be very confusing and frightening to an affected child and his or her family. The following presentation includes the pertinent physiology, psychology, etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of precocious pubertal development. Radioimmunoassays for gonadotropins and several key hormones are now available which enable the clinician to evaluate and follow the patient's condition with confidence and expertise. Three drugs have been proven effective and the most recent one, cyproterone acetate, has produced exciting clinical remissions with virtually no known side effects.