GIPP occurs more commonly in boys (described as testotoxicosis) than in girls. However, when it does occur in girls, it is due to either McCune-Albright syndrome or hypomelanosis of Ito. McCune-Albright syndrome consists of…

Two decades ago, the diagnosis of premature…

Isolated Menarche
This is a condition where young girls have cyclical uterine bleeding without any other signs of sexual maturation, and they have normal growth. The natural history during childhood has been described and…

Thelarche Variant
This encompasses a spectrum of conditions, which lie between premature thelarche and central precocious puberty. It may be difficult to distinguish from central precocious puberty. Indeed, there is a complete spectrum of…

Isolated Premature Thelarche
Premature thelarche is a benign, self-limiting condition which is characterised by breast development with no other signs of sexual maturation. There is no pubic or axillary hair development, behaviour is…

Central Precocious Puberty
This is known as central, idiopathic or gonadotrophin-dependent precocious puberty. The pattern of sexual development is indistinguishable from normal puberty and investigations reveal LH predominance to a GnRH stimulation test…

Various adrenal disorders may cause premature sexual maturation.
However, this does not involve ‘gonadarche’ and so there is no breast development.

There is usually pubic and axillary hair development with associated cutaneous manifestations of…

Precocious Puberty
There are many causes of precocious sexual development and these are probably best categorised into those that are gonadotrophin dependent and independent (table 1). Such a classification helps both in understanding the…