| dc.description.abstract | Context: Premature adrenarche (PA) has been associated with increased metabolic risk.
Objective: To describe the risk of precocious thelarche (PT; ,8 years), pubarche (PP; girls ,8 years,
boys ,9 years), and gonadarche (PG; ,9 years) in children with high dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate
(DHEAS [HD]) vs those with normal DHEAS (ND).
Setting and Intervention: Longitudinal Chilean cohort (n = 1052, 49.9% girls). Annual clinical examination
including secondary sex characteristics by Tanner staging. Logistic regression models were
adjusted by age and BMI.
Main Outcome: Assess the relationship between DHEAS and premature thelarche, gonadarche, and
pubarche in both sexes.
Results: At age of DHEAS determination, overweight/obesity was present in 44.3% of boys and 42.9% of
girls. Incidences of any precocious event were observed in 17.2% of boys and in 25.4% of girls, presented
as 8.7% of PG and 8.5% of PP in boys and as 21.3% of PT and 4.1% of PP in girls. In crude and adjusted
models in boys, HD did not increase the risk of earlier pubertal events. Conversely, girls with HD had a
2.6 times greater risk of early thelarche and a three times greater risk of early pubarche compared with
girls with ND concentrations.
Conclusion: In Chilean adolescents, precocious events of pubertal development were in line with the
worldwide secular trend of earlier sexual maturation. HD was only associated with PT and PP in girls.
Continuous follow-up of this cohort is a unique opportunity to prospectively address and analyze the
interrelationships among HD, early growth, and adiposity as determinants of gonadarche, pubertal rate/
sequence progression, and ovarian function. | |
