• Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care · Mar 2002

    Review

    Dangers of growth hormone therapy in critically ill patients.

    • Esko Ruokonen and Jukka Takala.
    • Critical Care Research Program, Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Kuopio University Hospital, Kuopio, Finland.
    • Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2002 Mar 1;5(2):199-209.

    AbstractProlonged length of stay is the major challenge for modern intensive care because of the associated morbidity and the impact on resource utilization. Severe trauma or infection is associated with a catabolic response, which is characterized by increased protein turnover and negative nitrogen balance. Severe catabolism leads to end-organ dysfunction and muscular weakness, prolonging the need for mechanical ventilation. Catabolism cannot be prevented with standard parenteral or enteral nutritional formulas. In order to prevent the complications of catabolism in intensive care patients, recombinant growth hormone has been applied as an experimental therapy for two decades in patients requiring parenteral nutrition and in patients with respiratory failure. Administration of recombinant growth hormone has resulted in positive nitrogen balance, and studies in mechanically ventilated patients suggest that it may shorten the need for ventilatory support. In contrast to the results of these relatively small studies, a recent multinational randomized controlled trial revealed that the administration of recombinant growth hormone (with doses 10-20 times higher than used for replacement therapy) increases mortality of critically ill patients. The excessive mortality in patients treated with recombinant growth hormone was related to infections and development of multiple organ failure, leading to the conclusion that administration of high doses of recombinant growth hormone cannot be recommended for critically ill patients. This review reinforces that conclusion.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…