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Restricted Growth

What are the symptoms?

In proportionate short stature, growth is limited throughout the body. Specific conditions exhibiting this form of growth pattern are hormone deficiencies where hormones produced by the thyroid and pituitary glands may be deficient, damaged, absent or else the body is unable to process the substance. Early recognition of hormone deficiency is vital to subsequent development. In chromosome defects such as Turner syndrome restricted growth may be the only symptom prior to puberty. Chronic heart, lung, kidney or liver disease may be associated with restricted growth.

In disproportionate short stature (and sometimes proportionate short stature), the problem is often due to a disturbance in the growth of bones and cartilage .In some conditions this is evident at birth: in others evidence arises later. Specific disorders include: achondroplasia (see entry) with shortening of the limbs especially the upper arm and thigh; hypochondroplasia, a distinct condition with less severe growth restriction; diastrophic dysplasia growth restriction affects the trunk and limbs, is apparent at birth and may be serious and progressive; in multiple epiphyseal dysplasia (MED) disorders of the epiphyses( growing ends of the long bones) occur; spondylo epiphyseal dysplasia (SED) the epiphyses of the long bones and the spine are affected (there are two main types: SED congenita; SED tarda); pseudoachondroplasia has several types, which have differing characteristics; Morquio disease is a mucopolysaccharide disease which causes restricted growth.

View Background Background  |  Inheritance patterns and prenatal diagnosis View Inheritance patterns and prenatal diagnosis

Medical text written November 1991 by Contact a Family. Approved November 1991 by Professor M Patton, Professor of Medical Genetics, St Georges Hospital Medical School, London, UK and Dr J E Wraith, Consultant Paediatrician, Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Manchester, UK. Last reviewed September 2005 by Dr R Stanhope, Consultant Paediatric Endocrinologist, Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, UK.

 

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