Growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor I plasma levels in patients with hypophosphatemic rickets.

The cause of the growth retardation present in patients with hypophosphatemic rickets has not been totally elucidated. There has been a previous report of a growth hormone deficit in a group of these patients. To verify this abnormality we studied two groups of patients with hypophosphatemic rickets, one with (n = 6) and the other without (n = 7) treatment with calcitriol and oral phosphates. All patients in both groups showed a normal growth hormone response (> 10 micrograms/l) to standard stimulatory tests and normal IGF-I plasma levels. Mean IGF-I plasma levels were not significantly different (untreated 1.46 +/- 0.80 U/ml, treated 1.25 +/- 0.69 U/ml) and the mean logarithmic deviation of IGF-I plasma levels from both groups did not differ from normal. In summary, we found no abnormalities of the growth hormone-IGF-I axis in our patients with hypophosphatemic rickets.