Everyone Healthy Library
Gigantism
Condition / disease reference page from the Everyone Healthy database.
Connected health information
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Condition overview
Attributes
Commonalityis rare
Linked signs and symptoms
0No related signs or symptoms are listed yet.
Linked drugs / medications
1Medication information is educational only. A doctor or pharmacist should advise whether any medicine is appropriate.
Treatments, therapies and supportive options
0Grouped by treatment type. These are educational database links, not personal treatment recommendations. Evidence labels are shown only where stored in the EH database.
No linked treatment or supportive options are listed yet.
Linked diagnostic tests and investigations
2These are pulled from both EH diagnostic-test link tables, including the older large test-link table.
Biological and test markers
1This visual map uses existing EH database links to show biological agents and lab markers reported as increased, decreased, or associated with this condition. These are educational relationships only; test results must be interpreted by a qualified clinician because ranges vary by lab, method, age, sex and clinical context.
Often decreased
0No markers in this group.
Other associated markers
0No markers in this group.
Introduction / full article
Gigantism
Gigantism
Gigantism or giantism, (from Greek gigas, gigantas "giant") is a condition characterized by excessive growth and height significantly above average. As a medical term, gigantism refers to the rare condition of pituitary gigantism due to prepubertal growth hormone excess. There is no precise definition of the degree of height that qualifies a person to be termed a "giant." The term has been typically applied to those whose height is not just in the upper 1% of the population but several standard deviations above mean for persons of the same sex, age, and ethnic ancestry. Typical adult heights of Americans of European descent to whom the term might be applied are 2.10 - 2.40 metres (7 - 8 feet). The term is seldom applied to those whose heights appear to be the healthy result of normal genetics and nutrition. In other words a tall person.
Etymology and terminology
Other names somewhat obsolete for this pathology are hypersomia (Greek: hyper over the normal level; soma body) and somatomegaly.
This information was collected from Wikipedia
This document is released under the GNU Free Documentation License