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

Abstract

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, greater than 10 micrograms/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 less than 0.001) and plasma somatomedin-C levels (r = 0.67; P less than 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 less than 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.

Age-dependent changes in body composition in postmenopausal Japanese women: relationship to growth hormone secretion as well as serum levels of insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-I and IGF-binding protein-3

“…Several lines of evidence have indicated that the measurement of GH levels in morning urine specimens is useful for the diagnosis of GH deficiency, since urinary GH excretion grossly reflects endogenous GH secretion (21,22). However, urinary GH excretion is influenced by renal tubular function (23,24), and the possibility cannot be ruled out that renal tubular dysfunction may be masked in older subjects, although serum creatinine levels of all women, less than 0.9 mg/dl, are presumed to be normal.…”

Relationship between Thyroid Functions and Urinary Growth Hormone Secretion in Patients with Hyper- and Hypothyroidism.

“…Spontaneous GH secretion is known to be pulsatile and the GH concentration in a single blood sample may not accurately reflect endogenous GH secretion. It has been recently reported that assay of the urinary GH concentration by a highly-sensitive enzyme immunoassay is useful in evaluating endogenous GH secretion in normal subjects, GH-deficient patients, and acromegalic patients [10][11][12][13]. Our data suggest that thyroid hormone stimulates urinary GH secretion which reflect endogenous GH secretion.…”

“…Recently, several reports have revealed that urinary GH determinations by means of sandwich enzyme immunoassay are useful in evaluating endogenous GH secretion in normal and GH-deficient subjects [10][11][12][13]. Therefore, it is important to reevaluate the relationship between thyroid function and GH secretion by this method.…”

Development of an Ultra-SensitiveEnzyme Immunoassay for Insulin and Its Application to the Evaluation of Diabetic Risk by Analysis of Morning Urine

“…We previously developed a highly sensitive ELISA for urinary growth hormone (GH) [Hashida, 1987, Sukegawa, 1988, which showed that assay of GH during nocturia was useful as a supporting diagnostic index of the pituitary dwarf. We have also recently developed an ultra-sensitive ICT-EIA for urinary soluble human insulin receptor ectodomain (sIR) and found that urinary sIR levels correlated well with sIR blood levels [Umehara, 2009].…”