Growth hormone after CNS tumor diagnosis: the fundamentals, fears, facts, and future directions

Abstract

Growth hormone deficiency (GHD) may occur in pediatric patients with central nervous system (CNS) tumors at initial tumor presentation or later as treatment-related sequelae. While it is well recognized that growth hormone (GH) has beneficial effects on growth and endocrinopathies, there’s often hesitancy by clinicians to initiate GH therapy for GHD after CNS tumor diagnosis due to the perceived increased risk of tumor recurrence. The available data is described here and based on this review, there is no evidence of increased risk of tumor recurrence or secondary malignancy in patients treated with GH after CNS tumor diagnosis. Further understanding of tumor biology and presence of downstream GH targets including insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and insulin receptor activity is still needed.

Keywords:

• Central nervous system (CNS)
• growth hormone deficiency (GHD)
• growth hormone (GH)
• pediatric

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Ms. Maria Smith (Nationwide Children’s Hospital) for her assistance in identification of local patients with a history of sellar tumors. This work was unfunded, and the authors have no financial or other conflicts of interest to disclose.

Conflicts of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest that pertain to this work.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.