Introduction:

Precocious puberty is defined as the progressive appearance of pubertal signs at an age below 2.5 standard deviations (SD) from the mean for a given population. There is a lack of epidemiological studies on this condition in our country.

Objective:

To determine the characteristics of precocious puberty and to evaluate the age of onset of secondary sexual characteristics in a population of girls under 8 years of age.

Materials and Methods:

This was an observational, descriptive, retrospective and cross-sectional study. Population: girls under 8 years of age, who consulted at a referral hospital from January 2017 to December 2021. The variables analyzed were age at the onset of symptoms, age at consultation, education, place of residence, reason for consultation, signs and symptoms, changes in bone age, positive response to the GnRH test and etiological association with changes found in brain MRI and pelvic ultrasound, as well as the therapeutic approach.

Results:

48 female patients under 8 years of age entered the study. The onset of symptoms occurred on average at 5.4 +/- 2.27 years, in 31.3% of all patients at the age of 6-7 years. Predominant diagnosis was central precocious puberty and 68.8% of GnRH stimulus tests were positive.

Conclusion:

The average age of onset of pubertal development in this group of girls was 5 years, earlier than described in the literature, with unknown etiology in most cases.

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