SONOGRAPHIC APPEARANCE OF OVARIES AND GONADOTROPIN SECRETIONS AS PROGNOSTIC TOOLS OF SPONTANEOUS PUBERTY IN GIRLS WITH TURNERS-SYNDROME

We evaluated the possibility of anticipating spontaneous puberty in pe ripubertal Turner girls, in order to plan substitutive estrogen treatm ent. in the 24 patients studied, spontaneous puberty was seen in 4/11 girls with 45 XO karyotype, 5/5 with mosaicisms, 1 out of 2 with struc tural aberrations of the X chromosome and 0 out of 6 with Xq isochromo somes. When considering sonographic findings, the 6 girls with normal ovaries and 4/9 of those with intermediate ovarian appearance showed s pontaneous puberty; the remaining 5 with intermediate ovaries and 9 wi th streak gonads did not undergo spontaneous puberty, Gonadotropin sec retion was normal in girls with normal ovaries, moderately elevated in patients with intermediate ovarian appearance, and very high in those with streak gonads, The prognostic value of sonography and gonadotrop ins is particularly important in girls with intermediate ovaries, Ther efore these evaluations should be performed at peripubertal age in pat ients with Turner's syndrome to elucidate the degree of ovarian insuff iciency.