Current perspectives on the aetiology of tall stature in children and adolescents (2): Non-syndromic tall stature
Abstract
Non-syndromic tall stature can be caused by growth hormone overproduction, hyperthyroidism, obesity, hypog-onadism, precocious puberty or as constitutional growth acceleration. There are conditions caused by a genetic cause as well such as non-sydromic tall stature, typically familial tall stature or, more rarely, pituitary gigantism, which includes X-linked acrogigantism (XLAG).
Tall stature can rarely occur in neurofibromatosis type I or in glu-cocorticoid resistance. After excluding the common endocrinopathies the patients are, in clinical practice, assigned as "familial tall stature" or "constitutional growth acceleration".
Recently, there have been findings showing that non-syndromic tall stature can be caused by a monogenic cause, which can only be found by detailed genetic testing with precise clinical-genetic evaluation.