Three children with hypothalamic tumors were found to have varying degrees of anterior and posterior pituitary insufficiency. Two had undetectable plasma levels of immunoreactive growth hormone (less than 1 ng/ml) and one had levels within the normal fasting range (1–4 ng/ml). None responded to any stimulus with a rise in plasma immunoreactive growth hormone. In spite of this, all patients showed normal or accelerated linear growth and markedly excessive weight gain. Sulfation factor activity (somatomedin) was detectable in the serum of all three patients. This indicates that some substance other than immunoreactive growth hormone, capable of producing growth and stimulating formation of sulfation factor is being produced in these children and is responsible for this syndrome.
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Finkelstein et al. (1972) studied this question.