10 Year Old Girl / 13 Year Old Bone Age

Dr Guy:

My daughter in 10 1/2 (will be 11 in October).  We have been watching her bone age since she was 8, when we noticed very modest pubic hair growth. She has been measured at about 2 years ahead by bone age fairly consistently althogh the last reading a year ago seemed less advanced and this one seems more advanced.  The specialists we have taked to are now saying she will stop growing soon.  I have 3 questions: (1) about the bone age tests -- they seem hard to really know what to make of.  I would presume there are all kinds of variations around average and how do you know if + or - 2 years is a variation on normal or something to be concerned about? (2) If her bone age is really 13 years now, how certain is it that she will reach the fuse stage anytime now and essentially stop growing?  I don't remember my childhood that well as to this kind of detail, but I certainly dont recall that all girls reached within an inch of thier total hieght on their 13th Bday -- are there variations around how long you keep growing other than just bone maturity?  Can someone who is 10 with a 13 year old bone age perhaps grow more that someone who is 13 with a 13 year old bone age would? (3) what treatments are there? HGH? Progesterone?  What do you do about this?  I feel like we have been waiting and watching for years now and if there is a time to act, it must be now...


This discussion is related to premature adrenarche.

[sweetpea03]

There are pretty big variations in bone growth that are considered normal. Just because one person has a bone growth of +2 years, doesn't mean it's a bad thing or that somethings wrong. You can give her hormonal treatments, but unless there is something wrong medically, like causing problems for her, I wouldn't see any reason to give her anything. Let her body develop naturally.