EARLY PUBERTY: A LITERATURE REVIEW

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.22533/at.ed.1594682424077

• Palavras-chave: precocious puberty, secondary characters, central precocious puberty, peripheral precocious puberty.

• Keywords: precocious puberty, secondary characters, central precocious puberty, peripheral precocious puberty.

• Abstract:

  Precocious puberty can be defined as the development of secondary sexual characteristics before the age of 8 in girls and before the age of 9 in boys, which can be caused by hormonal disorders, genetic changes or exposure to chemical substances. The objective of the work was to analyze the main etiologies, diagnosis, epidemiology and clinical evolution and treatment of precocious puberty, aiming to improve the clinical understanding of the pathology. This is a bibliographic review type research, which included articles in Portuguese and English published between 2014 and 2024 in the UpToDate, SciELO and BVS databases. Articles out of date, not available online or repeated were excluded. The review carried out reveals that there are several etiologies for precocious puberty, which are classified into central causes (early activation of the hormonal axis itself) or peripheral causes (external autonomous production of sexual steroids). Depending on the type of etiology, the diagnostic method is chosen, which consists of clinical factors, hormonal levels and imaging, such as wrist radiography to assess bone age. Furthermore, the clinical evolution of the disease progresses with initial presentations such as breast development in girls and increased testicular volume in boys, increased growth speed and skeletal maturation, in addition to the emergence of other sexual characteristics. Regarding treatment, the aim is to suppress the production of gonadotropins (LH and FSH) through the use of long-acting GnRH agonists, in patients with clinical indication.