Active Ingredient: Somatropin
Replacement therapy in adults with pronounced growth hormone deficiency.
Adult Onset: Patients who have severe growth hormone deficiency associated with multiple hormone deficiencies as a result of known hypothalamic or pituitary pathology, and who have at least one known deficiency of a pituitary hormone not being prolactin. These patients should undergo an appropriate dynamic test in order to diagnose or exclude a growth hormone deficiency.
Childhood Onset: Patients who were growth hormone deficient during childhood as a result of congenital, genetic, acquired, or idiopathic causes. Patients with childhood onset GHD should be re-evaluated for growth hormone secretory capacity after completion of longitudinal growth. In patients with a high likelihood for persistent GHD, i.e. a congenital cause or GHD secondary to a pituitary/hypothalamic disease or insult, an insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) SDS < - 2 off growth hormone treatment for at least 4 weeks should be considered sufficient evidence of profound GHD.
All other patients will require IGF-I assay and one growth hormone stimulation test.
For this indication, competent medicine agencies globally authorize below treatments:
For:
Subcutaneous
0.15 - 1 mg
From 0.15 To 1 mg once every day
In patients who continue growth hormone therapy after childhood GHD, the recommended dose to restart is 0.2–0.5 mg per day. The dose should be gradually increased or decreased according to individual patient requirements as determined by the IGF-I concentration.
In patients with adult-onset GHD, therapy should start with a low dose, 0.15–0.3 mg per day. The dose should be gradually increased according to individual patient requirements as determined by the IGF-I concentration.
In both cases treatment goal should be IGF-I concentrations within 2 SDS from the age corrected mean. Patients with normal IGF-I concentrations at the start of the treatment should be administered growth hormone up to an IGF-I level into upper range of normal, not exceeding the 2 SDS. Clinical response and side effects may also be used as guidance for dose titration. It is recognised that there are patients with GHD who do not normalize IGF-I levels despite a good clinical response, and thus do not require dose escalation. The maintenance dose seldom exceeds 1.0 mg per day.
Women may require higher doses than men, with men showing an increasing IGF-I sensitivity over time. This means that there is a risk that women, especially those on oral oestrogen replacement are under-treated while men are over-treated. The accuracy of the growth hormone dose should therefore be controlled every 6 months. As normal physiological growth hormone production decreases with age, dose requirements are reduced.
In patients above 60 years, therapy should start with a dose of 0.1-0.2 mg per day and should be slowly increased according to individual patient requirements. The minimum effective dose should be used. The maintenance dose in these patients seldom exceeds 0.5 mg per day.
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