A Preliminary Study of the Effect of Estrogen Dose on Growth in Turner's Syndrome

Abstract

PATIENTS with Turner's syndrome are short and lack a pubertal growth spurt.¹ Estrogen has been implicated as one factor that stimulates the normal pubertal growth spurt, yet estrogen in high doses has also been used to inhibit growth.^{2 3 4} This suggests that there is a biphasic dose–response curve for the effect of estrogen on growth. To evaluate this possibility, we studied the effect of estrogen dose on growth rate in patients with Turner's syndrome. We assessed the growth response by using the four-week ulnar growth rate, a sensitive index of short-term growth that correlates with height velocity.⁵ We found that administration . . .