Precocious Puberty: A Report of 96 Cases

Abstract

Sexual precocity is an uncommon condition which is characterized by the appearance of the changes of puberty before the anticipated age of puberty. It affects girls more often than boys, although a familial occurrence of the disease among boys has been reported.1"Constitutional," "cryptogenic," and "idiopathic" are qualifying terms to designate precocious puberty of unknown cause. "Neurogenic" and "cerebral" are terms applied to precocious puberty associated with organic lesions of the central nervous system (CNS). In the hope that a relatively long follow-up of a group of patients with precocious puberty would shed some light on the natural history of the process, we undertook the present study. Moreover, the frequent association of sexual precocity with organic lesions of the CNS prompted a desire to gain information about the possible development of lesions of the CNS among patients who, at the time of their original examination, had uncomplicated precocious puberty.