Adherence to growth hormone (GH) therapy in naive to treatment GH-deficient children: data of the Italian Cohort from the Easypod Connect Observational Study (ECOS)

Background With the use of non-objective measurement, adherence to growth hormone (GH) therapy has been reported suboptimal in a large proportion of patients, and poor adherence has been shown to affect short-term growth response in patients receiving GH treatment. Objective The Easypod (TM) electronic device allows objective measurement of adherence. In this study, we report 3-year prospective adherence data of the Italian cohort of naive GH deficient (GHD) children extrapolated from the Easypod Connect Observational Study (ECOS) database. Patients and methods Seventy-three GHD children naive to GH treatment were included in the analysis. 22 Italian centers participated in the study. Results Mean adherence rate was consistently above 85% across the 3-year observation period. Particularly, mean adherence was 88.5%, 86.6%, and 85.7% after 1, 2 and 3 years, respectively. Mean (+/- SD) height-SDS increase after the first year was 0.41 (+/- 0.38). Conclusions The majority of naive GHD children starting GH treatment with Easypod maintained an adherence rate > 85% up to 3 years. Easypod is a useful tool to follow-up patients' adherence allowing timely intervention to improve optimal treatment for these patients.