Background: Short children face many problems throughout their lives. Consumption of growth hormone and the drugs such as Letrozole, Oxandrolone, and Anastrozole can increase the growth of children and adolescents. There is not an overall estimate of the effects of Letrozole, Oxandrolone, and Anastrozole on the growth of children and adolescents with Idiopathic Short Stature (ISS). There are different estimates of the effect of growth hormone and the drugs Letrozole, Oxandrolone, and Anastrozole on growth in children and adolescents with Idiopathic Short Stature. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of growth hormone, Letrozole, Oxandrolone, Anastrozole, and a combination of growth hormone and aromatase inhibitors on height gain in children and adolescents with idiopathic short stature using meta-analysis method.
Methods: Search was done in databases such as; Scopus, Web of Science(ISI), and PubMed using keywords: Idiopathic, Short Stature, Body Height, Aromatase Inhibitors, Growth hormone, Letrozole, Oxandrolone, Anastrozole. Randomized clinical trial studies ,that have investigated the efficacy of growth hormone and aromatase inhibitors on height gain in children and adolescents with short stature, were selected. Height standard deviation score (HSDS) before intervention and after treatment has been used to measure the rate of height increase in various studies. This study was written based on the PRISMA checklist and the heterogeneity of this study was evaluated using the Q statistic and I² index.