Introduction Concurrent with increasing public awareness of individuals whose gender identity is not aligned with their physical sex characteristics, there has been an increasing number of gender nonconforming/transgender youth seeking medical services to enable the development of physical characteristics consistent…
Puberty is the process through which children attain adult secondary sexual characteristics and reproductive capability. In humans, two distinct processes of sexual maturation are recognized: gonadarche and adrenarche. Gonadarche is defined as the growth and maturation of the gonads, resulting…
Historical background Turner syndrome (TS) is defined as a disorder caused by complete or partial absence of the second sex chromosome, with or without cell line mosaicism. This further needs to be associated with one or more characteristic physical features…
Puberty is the stage of development during which secondary sexual characteristics appear and there is a transition from the sexually immature to the sexually mature stage. Adolescence is widely used as a generally synonymous term for puberty, but it is…
Introduction Endocrine neoplasms comprise a variety of benign and malignant tumors that arise from the endocrine glands or other neuroendocrine tissues, such as the paraganglia. Most childhood endocrine tumors, typified by papillary thyroid carcinoma, are sporadic and not attributable to…
History, embryology, and anatomy The adrenal cortex produces three principal categories of steroid hormones that regulate a wide variety of physiologic processes from fetal to adult life. Mineralocorticoids, principally aldosterone, regulate renal retention of sodium and thus profoundly influence electrolyte…
Introduction Thyroid disease can present with overt symptoms, insidiously, or with isolated thyromegaly. Thyroid disease in children can encompass isolated biochemical abnormalities that have little or no physiological consequence, or with overt clinical symptoms. Clinically, hypothyroidism occurs more commonly than…
Introduction Maintenance of the tonicity of extracellular fluids within a very narrow range is crucial for proper cell function. Extracellular osmolality regulates cell shape, as well as intracellular concentrations of ions and other osmolytes. Furthermore, proper extracellular ionic concentrations are…
Introduction Human growth is an astonishing process. Its beginnings are intertwined with the enormously intricate mechanisms that transform a single cell into a complex embryo. Once formed, the human fetus and then child continue to grow over the course of…
Introduction Diabetes is a heterogeneous disorder with many different possible causes, both genetic and acquired. Risk for the most common causes, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, depends on many different gene loci with intermediate or low effects and are…