Some aspects of precocious puberty in preschool-age girls

Abstract

Precocious puberty (PP) remains a challenging issue for pediatrics, particularly pediatric endocrinology, gynecology, and neurology due to its clinical and pathogenetic heterogeneity. And PP-associated psychosocial development of the girls also plays an important role. The article presents three case studies of pre-school age girls with precocious puberty amid organic brain syndrome, McCune-Albright syndrome, and pituitary cyst. In all cases thelarche was the main reason for contacting the doctor. The patient with organic brain syndrome had such a specific clinical feature as overweight and the patient with McCune-Albright syndrome — café-au-lait skin spots on the face, buttocks, and the left hand. These case studies demonstrate that for identifying girls with PP a multidisciplinary approach is needed. It will enable to examine a patient properly, make the correct diagnosis as early as possible, detect potential comorbidities and prescribe effective treatment, as well as to provide follow-up care including the assessment of physical and sexual development. Also, it is required to analyze hormonal profile and to perform pelvic ultrasound examination. The relationship between genetic and epigenetic factors in the development of these pathological conditions is discussed. KEYWORDS: precocious puberty, girls, thelarche, adrenarche, pituitary-hypothalamic-ovarian axis, epiphyseal tumor. FOR CITATION: Chebotareva Yu.Yu., Petrov Yu.A., Rodina M.A. Some aspects of precocious puberty in preschool-age girls. Russian Journal of Woman and Child Health. 2022;5(3):215–222 (in Russ.). DOI: 10.32364/2618-8430-2022-5-3-215-222.