Comparison of growth acceleration of pituitary dwarfs treated with anabolic steroid and thyroid hormone with normal growth spurt

Twenty six patients with pituitary dwarfism and 21 patients with delayed adolescence were treated by the administration of desiccated thyroid and an anabolic steroid, and their effectiveness in producing an increase in growth rate was compared in the two groups and also with the growth spurt of normal adolescents. The mean growth rate of patients with pituitary dwarfism was less than 3.4 cm per year at any chronological age before treatment, and increased to 8.93 ± 0.40, 6.37 ± 2.47 and 5.13 ± 1.67 cm per year in the first, second and third year of treatment with a total increment of 21.0 ± 4.58. This compared with a 3 year increment in 12 treated delayed adolescence of 25.8 ±4.1 and the 3 year puberty growth spurt in 33 normal male adolescents of 22.2 ± 2.25. The final height of these dwarfs is not known since they are still under treatment and still growing. When the patients with pituitary dwarfism were divided into two groups, i. e. one in which the HGH in serum could be detected and the others in which the HGH could not be detected at any time, the height increment for the period of 3 year's treatment seemed to be greater in the HGH detectable group than in the undetectable group. These data suggest that a small amount of basic HGH secretion may play an enhancing role in the activity of anabolic steroid and thyroid hormones.

Cerebral atherosclerosis in Japanese. I. Age related to atherosclerosis

During a period of approximately two years (1965 through 1966), 717 intracranial cerebral arteries (males and females) were obtained from the medicolegal autopsy cases. Systematic grading of the macroscopic severity of cerebral atherosclerosis was performed and the results were reported. In general, cerebral atherosclerosis appeared as early as the second decade and increased in severity with age, particularly at the fifth decade in males and the sixth decade in females. The prevalence of localization of early and/or severe cerebral atherosclerosis was studied. The results in the present study were not the same as in the previous investigations on Caucasians. The common sites of the severe cerebral atherosclerosis causing marked lumen narrowing were the proximal portion of posterior cerebral arteries, peripheral portion of the middle cerebral arteries, and the vertebral arteries and their fusing site at the basilar artery; the internal carotid artery was the least commonly involved.

In the present study, the influence of sex in the production of cerebral atherosclerosis was suggested, and the simple senescence theory of cerebral atherosclerosis was not supported. The macroscopic severity of cerebral atherosclerosis of Japanese in the present study appeared to be equal to or slightly greater than that in Americans and Norwegians reported by Baker et al.