Background: Short stature is one of the quite common Pediatric conditions coming in Pediatric OPD and Ward, which affects around 5-13% of children in India. There have been multiple studies across the world and in India regarding its prevalence and etiological profile. We did this study as not many rural children population data are available of short stature in India.
Methods: From October 2019 to September 2020 (12 months), 1932 children screened who visited Pediatric OPD and/or got admitted to the Pediatric ward by taking height or length and by comparing to standard growth charts as per their age and sex. We studied a total of 69 patients whose parents consented. We recorded pertinent details and analyzed data.
Results: After screening of 1932 children, we enrolled 249 children whose height/length was found less than the 3rd percentile, and 69 were analyzed whose parents consented including primary workup. We found 12.88% patients with short stature and the median (IQR) of age in months was 38(18-123) among 69 children (39 boys and 30 girls). Of them, 13(18.8%) children were diagnosed with familial short stature and 3(4.3%) had constitutional growth delay. Among pathological causes, nutritional causes were attributed total of 21 children (30.4%). In genetic syndrome down syndrome was the most common, and hypothyroidism was the leading endocrinal cause. (4 out of 7).
Conclusion: We concluded that the proportion of short stature is 12.88% in our central Gujarat region. Nutritional and systemic diseases were among the common causes in our study population whereas normal variant was next to it.
Key words: Constitutional short stature, Familial short stature, Nutritional, Systemic diseases
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