Incidence

• Most common cause of GHD in children is idiopathic.
• Most common cause of GHD in adults is a pituitary adenoma or treatment of the adenoma with surgery or radiotherapy:
  • 76% of patients with GHD had a pituitary tumor.
  • 13% had an extrapituitary tumor.
  • 8% the cause was unknown.
  • 1% had sarcoidosis.
  • 0.5% had Sheehan syndrome (1).

• In children, isolated GHD has been reported to affect 1 in 4000.
• Adult onset idiopathic GHD is extremely rare.