Precocious Puberty

Precocious puberty has been a focus of interest for both the pediatric endocrinologist and the primary pediatrician for many years. The development and application of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist (GnRHa) therapy to treat central precocious puberty in the 1980s significantly changed our approach to this disorder. More recently, application of molecular biological techniques has led to a better understanding of the intricacies of regulation of gonadotropin and sex-steroid production characteristic of normal pubertal development and provided us with the tools to elucidate etiologies of previously uncharacterized disorders of precocious puberty.