Treatment
The decision to treat is based on a belief that the child will be disabled by being extremely short as an adult, so that the risks of treatment (including sudden death) will outweigh the risks of not treating the symptom of short stature. Although short children commonly report being teased about their height, most adults who are very short are not physically or psychologically disabled by their height.
Treatment is expensive and requires many years of injections with human growth hormones. The result depends on the cause, but is typically an increase in final height of about 5 to 10 centimetres (2.0 to 3.9 in) taller than predicted. Thus, treatment takes a child who is expected to be shorter than a normal adult, and produces an adult who is still obviously shorter than average.
Increasing final height in children with short stature may be beneficial and could enhance health-related quality of life (HRQoL) outcomes barring troublesome side effects and excessive cost of treatments.
Read more about this topic: Short Stature
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrongdoing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly, I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art.”
—Hippocrates (c. 460–c. 370 B.C.)
“The treatment of the incident of the assault upon the sailors of the Baltimore is so conciliatory and friendly that I am of the opinion that there is a good prospect that the differences growing out of that serious affair can now be adjusted upon terms satisfactory to this Government by the usual methods and without special powers from Congress.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“Narcissist: psychoanalytic term for the person who loves himself more than his analyst; considered to be the manifestation of a dire mental disease whose successful treatment depends on the patient learning to love the analyst more and himself less.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)