GrowTallest

Somatropin

Hormones · In Growth hormone, Hedgehog signalling and the PTHrP loop, Imprinted growth genes, SHOX

3D structure of human growth hormone, which somatropin is (PDB 1HGU)
Structure: human growth hormone, which somatropin is. Image from the RCSB PDB (RCSB.org) of PDB ID 1HGU (Chantalat et al., 1995)

Approved for a growth disorderHeight measured in peopleBy injectionProtein or enzyme

Growth hormone itself, made in a lab and identical to the body's own, injected and licensed for several childhood conditions that cause short stature.

Recombinant human GH: the full 191-amino-acid sequence, identical to the pituitary hormone, given by subcutaneous injection. Approved paediatric indications are GH deficiency, Turner syndrome, Noonan syndrome, SHOX deficiency, small for gestational age without catch-up, Prader-Willi syndrome and idiopathic short stature. It turns up in four articles in this library, and in three of them as a way around a defect rather than a correction of it: the missing transcription factor, the silenced allele and the broken receptor signal are all left as they are, and the drive on the plate is raised from outside the pathway that failed.

Risks. No boxed warning, but its label carries thirteen warnings: among them sudden death in children with Prader-Willi syndrome, a higher risk of second tumours in children who survived cancer, rising pressure inside the skull, a hip growth plate that can slip, worsening scoliosis and diabetes.

On this page

  • At the growth plate, members only
  • Risks and side effects, members only

The rest of this page is for members

What has been measured, in whom, with every source, and what it does to the rest of you. And every article in the library.

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Educational content, not medical advice. Nothing here is a recommendation to take or stop taking anything — talk to a doctor about your own situation.