Development of Synthetic Growth Charts for Romanian Population

Abstract

There are no new national growth references for the Romanian population and the current recommendations for short stature evaluation is the use of the Swiss growth charts developed based on a longitudinal study.The aim of the present paper is to present the new synthetic growth references for Romanian children.Material and methods. We used local Romanian data from 9 studies with information on height and weight obtained between 1999 and 2016. Based on their plausibility and methodology six studies were selected for generating the National Synthetic Growth References for Romanian Children based on the specific methodology described previously. The selected studies included 8407 subjects measured in schools/kindergartens. Age is reported in years covering a range from 3-18 years. Height and weight were measured at a precision of 0.1 cm and 0.1 kg. All children were measured at normal temperature, in light clothes, without footwear.Results. We present the charts and tables with the common centiles for height, weight and body mass index for boys and girls.Conclusion. We suggest synthetic growth references based upon recent growth data from 6 different Romanian regions as new National Growth Charts for Romanian children.

Evaluation of Iodate Status in a Group of Children with Stature Delay from Sibiu County

“…These results were obtained following the evaluation of the children's height values measured on the growth charts equivalent for our country, which were recently developed for Romania. (11) All the 63 children included in the study range between 11-14 years old and their distribution was made according to the originating groups. In group A we included the children from the endemic area Gura Rîului, while in group B we included children from the non-endemic area Şeica Mare.…”

Isolated growth hormone deficiency – a rare, but treatable cause of low stature

“…Low stature is defined as absolute height below two SD for age and sex (17). Recommended anthropometric standards for height are comprised in the synthetic curves for Romania, published in Acta Endocrinologica in 2016 (18). GHD is a rare, but important cause of low stature, with a prevalence of approximately 1:4,000 during childhood (1).…”

Secular Trends in Height, Body Mass and Mean Menarche Age in Romanian Children and Adolescents, 1936–2016

“…Apart from the synthetic growth charts developed in 2016 [ 21 ], there are no growth standards published for the Romanian pediatric population. The following historical data sets were identified through literature review: 1936—anthropometric evaluation of 11,761 boys and 10,723 girls 5–15 years of age covering the whole geographical area with measurements from both urban and rural regions [ 22 ] with available mean and standard deviation scores (SDS) for height and body mass.…”

“… 2010—a sample of 1375 boys and 1476 girls, age 6–19 years, from 6 counties, not covering the whole geographical area with measurements performed by 3D scanning [ 24 ] 2012—regional growth references for school children—3731 subjects, aged 7–19 years from the western part of Romania [ 25 ]. 2013—regional data set from one county in Transylvania, analyzing 1923 children age 6–14 years both from urban and rural schools; data on age of menarche was used in this analysis [ 26 ]; the anthropometric parameters were used in the development of the synthetic growth charts [ 21 ] 2016—The synthetic growth references which included 8407 subjects age 3–18 years of age with measurements performed between 2011–2016, covering the whole geographical area, with combined measurements for urban and rural children. The methodology for developing synthetic growth references is described elsewhere [ 27 ] 2018—Data from the study on the biomotric potential of school children developed and carried out by the national Institute of Sport Research which included 275,501 school aged children 7–18 years old with full geographical coverage [ 28 ].…”