Treatment with gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues: different impact on body weight in normal-weight and overweight children.

OBJECTIVE: We studied the effect of gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues (GnRHa) on weight gain as a possible side effect.

METHODS: We analyzed longitudinally changes in BMI-SDS in 92 children [median age 8.0 years (IQR 7.1-8.9), 88% females, mean BMI-SDS 0.69 ± 1.30] with idiopathic central precocious puberty or early puberty treated with GnRHa. Furthermore, 25 overweight children with GnRHa were compared to 25 overweight children without GnRHa matched by age, gender, degree of overweight, and pubertal stage.

RESULTS: The matched overweight children without GnRHa demonstrated a significant increase in their BMI-SDS in the course of 1 year (+0.18 ± 0.22). Normal-weight children treated with GnRHa demonstrated a significant increase in BMI-SDS in the course of 1 year (+0.32 ± 0.66) in contrast to overweight children treated with GnRHa who showed a stable BMI-SDS (-0.02 ± 0.27). This significant difference in changes in BMI-SDS between normal-weight and overweight children treated with GnRHa was also observed at the end of GnRHa treatment and 6 months later (p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS: Change in weight status differed between overweight and normal-weight children during GnRHa treatment. We found no increased risk for the side effect of weight gain in overweight children treated with GnRHa.