Growth hormone here in month

Press, 19 June 1986, Page 8

Growth hormone here in month

Canterbury children with growth disorders should be able to have injections of an expensive new synthetic hormone in four weeks, although future funding of the treatment is in doubt. A $1 million bulk supply of the hormone was ordered last week by the Auckland Hospital Board for distribution nationally. It ordered enough to treat for a year up to 60 New Zealand children deficient in growth hormones. Twelve of those children are in Canterbury. For most the synthetic hormone will be the first treatment since last June when supplies were stopped of a hormone derived from animal tissues after it was linked to an incurable brain disease. That hormone was about a tenth of the price of an artificial hormone which soon became available. Orders of the new hormone were delayed because of debate over whether the Health De-

partment or hospital boards should pay the $3OO a week dose needed for each child. The Canterbury Hospital Board’s finance committee yesterday agreed to foot the bill for the Canterbury children until September, when the department will make decisions on purchase of special drugs. The board still has to decide where the interim $187,000 will come from. Money from the budgets of the endocrinology and pediatric departments may be used. The chairman of the National Hormone Committee’s clinical sub-com-mittee and endocrinologist at The Princess Margaret Hospital, Professor R. A. Donald, said he was pleased that the growth hormone was finally on its way, but he expected that there could be problems if the department did not agree to pay for it. Since last June only those children whose lives would have been at risk

without the hormone, because of low blood sugar levels, had received it, he said. Five of those at risk were in Canterbury. The remainder had some catching up to do. In an average year they would grow about two centimetres without the hormone, compared with six centimetres for normal children. Although the children would probably have a growth spurt once treatment started again, that would level out after about a year, Professor Donald said. Several short children who were not completely deficient in the hormone would also receive it on a year’s trial he said. Those children had been treated before. Under the new treatment, children would receive six hormone injections a week, usually from the time a deficiency was discovered until after puberty, said Professor Donald. It could be used for up to 10 years.