Características clínicas, endocrinas y metabólicas de una población argentina de ni？as con pubarca prematura

precocious pubarche in girls is caused by premature adrenarche in most cases. less frequently it occurs in absence of biochemical markers of adrenarche being ascribed to increased target tissue sensitivity. premature pubarche with pronounced adrenarche has been associated with insulin resistance and dyslipemia, especially in girls with history of low birth weight. most studies have been conducted in hispanic and affrican-american patients. we studied a total of 40 argentinean girls with isolated premature pubarche, aged 7.23 ± 0.29 years (mean ± sem) at the moment of diagnosis. grade of sexual development, height, weight, bmi and birth weight (bw) were recorded. dehidroepiandrosterone sulphate (dheas), androstenedione (a), testosterone (t), 17oh progesterone (17 ohp), shbg, lh, fsh, prl and estradiol were measured. total cholesterol (tc), ldl cholesterol (ldl- c), triglycerides (tgc), glucose, insulin, homa and fasting glucose/ insulin index (g/i) were evaluated and compared with those in a control group of 25 normal girls. patients were divided into two groups: pre a (pre adrenarche), with dheas < 400 ng/ml, and post a (post adrenarche), with dheas > 400 ng/ml. post a girls had higher chronological age, bone age advancement and grade of pubic hair development than pre a girls. no difference was found regarding bmi or bw. besides higher dheas levels, post a girls showed elevated a and 17ohp levels than pre a girls (86 ± 8 vs 35 ± 4 ng/dl, p<0. 0001 and 1.1 ± 0.09 vs 0.75 ± 0.07 ng/ml, p< 0.01, respectively). insulin levels (μui/ml) were 4.51 ± 0.75 in pre a, 6.53 ± 1.11 in post a and 4.05 ± 0.45 in control group. fasting g/i was 24.07 ± 3.75 in pre a , 18.4 ± 2.34 in post a and 25.41 ± 2.31 in controls. homa was 0.90 ± 0.12 in pre a, 1.35 ± 0.22 in post a and 0.89 ± 0.11 in control group. post a girls had higher insulin and homa and lower g/i than control group girls (p<0.05) while those parameters in pre a girls were not different than in normal control subjects. o