Child Health: Endocrinology, Growth and Metabolism

Head: Dr Malcolm Donaldson (Senior Lecturer)

Staff
Professor S Faisal Ahmed (Professor of Developmental Endocrinology)
Emma-Jane Gault (Research Assistant)
Jeremy Jones (Research Assistant)
Ethel McNeill (Specialist Nurse)
Catherine Milmore (Medical Secretary)
Wendy Paterson (Auxologist)
Dr John Schulga (District Paediatrician in Forth Valley with a special interest in Endocrinology)
Endocrine Registrar

As the largest of four regional centres for paediatric endocrinology in Scotland the Growth and Endocrinology Group has close links with the Departments of Steroid Biochemistry at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, the Neonatal Screening Service for hypothyroidism in the Department of Bacteriology at Stobhill Hospital, the Department of Radiology at Yorkhill Hospital with its special expertise in pelvic sonography in girls, the Department of Medical Genetics, and the Haematology Department with whom we share care of oncology/leukaemia patients.

With a background of clinical and molecular genetic work in Turner's syndrome in Scotland, we are planning to co-ordinate a collaborative UK study on growth promoting therapy in Turner's syndrome, and the timing of oestrogen induction. Within the Department we are actively researching foot problems in Turner's syndrome, important phenotypic differences between girls with the 45X/47XXX karyotype and regular Turner's syndrome, and optimal investigation of renal anomalies in Turner's syndrome. There is an infrastructure for the diagnosis and monitoring of girls with precocious and early puberty at Yorkhill, and we have recently published our results with long acting LHRH analogue.

We are also studying possible reasons for an increasing referral rate of girls with early puberty to our Department. The national database for congenital hypothyroidism is held in the Department and has given rise to an audit paper published in Archives of Disease in Childhood and a paper on Congenital malformations in TSH elevation published in Journal of Paediatrics. An audit of growth from 0-2 years in Scottish children with congenital hypothyroidism is underway and we are planning a prospective study of ultrasound findings in normal neonates compared with children who have TSH elevation. In collaboration with the Departments of Community Child Health in Lanarkshire and Glasgow we have pioneered Guthrie TSH screening in Down's school children for two successive years and wish to extend this facility to the whole of Scotland by the year 2000. The Department has an active interest in the programming effect of obesity and sexual precocity on insulin and steroid metabolism, and a prospective study is in progress. Our auxologist Wendy Paterson is responsible for an ongoing six monthly audit of all children receiving growth hormone in the four main Scottish centres (Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee) and is in the process of computerising our entire endocrine data base which was created in 1989 and includes all new patient referrals to the Department.

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