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Urinary Growth Hormone (GH) Measurements Are Useful for Evaluating Endogenous GH Secretion^*

Department of Medicine, Institute of Clinical Endocrinology, Tokyo Women's Medical College, and the Research Laboratory, Foundation for Growth Science Tokyo 162, Japan
The Department of Biochemistry, Medical College of Miyazaki (S.H., E.I.) Kiyotake Miyazaki 880-16, Japan
Research Laboratories, Research and Development Division, Sumitomo Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd. (Z.M., Y.M.) Takarazuka, Hyogo 665, Japan

Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Dr. Naomi Hizuka, Department of Medicine, Institute of Clinical Endocrinology, Tokyo Women's Medical College, 8-1 Kawada-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162 Japan.

Daily (24-h) urinary GH excretion was measured using a highly sensitive sandwich enzyme immunoassay in 10 normal adults, 6 patients with hypopituitarism, 25 normal but short children who had normal plasma GH responses (peak plasma GH level, > 10 µg/L) to provocative tests, and 8 patients with acromegaly. The mean urinary GH values in the normal adults, patients with acromegaly, and patients with hypopituitarism were 13.8 ± 4.0 (±SE) and 431.1 ± 149.1 ng/g creatinine (Cr) (1.56 ± 0.45 and 48.77 ± 16.87 ng/mmol Cr) and undetectable, respectively; these mean values were significantly different from each other. In the normal but short children the urinary values ranged from undetectable to 55.8 ng/g Cr (6.31 ng/mmol Cr). All of the normal but short children and 4 patients with hypopituitarism participated in a 24-h endogenous GH secretion study. The urinary GH values correlated significantly with the mean 24-h plasma GH concentrations as an index of endogenous GH secretion (r = 0.81; P < 0.001) and plasma somatomedin-C levels (r = 0.67; P < 0.001), respectively. In 6 patients with acromegaly whose plasma GH levels were constant throughout a 4-h period, the urinary GH values also significantly correlated with the mean plasma GH levels (r = 0.95; P < 0.01). These data indicate that urinary GH measurements reflect endogenous GH secretion and that measurement of urinary GH excretion is a useful, simple, and practical method for evaluating endogenous GH secretion.

^* This work was supported by a Grant in Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture, Japan (61770872, 61570566, and 61440052), and a research grant from the Intractable Diseases Division, Public Health Bureau, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Japan.

Received May 22, 1987.

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