Urinary and salivary endocrine measurements to complement Tanner staging in studies of pubertal development

BACKGROUND: Many studies investigating pubertal development use Tanner staging to assess maturation. Endocrine markers in urine and saliva may provide an objective, sensitive, and non-invasive method for assessing development. OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to examine whether changes in endocrine levels can indicate the onset of pubertal development prior to changes in self-rated Tanner stage. METHODS: Thirty-five girls and 42 boys aged 7 to 15 years were enrolled in the Growth and Puberty (GAP) study, a longitudinal pilot study conducted from 2007–2009 involving children of women enrolled in the Agricultural Health Study (AHS) in Iowa. We collected saliva and urine samples and assessed pubertal development by self-rated Tanner staging (pubic hair, breast development (girls), genital development (boys)) at three visits over six months. We measured dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) in saliva and creatinine-adjusted luteinizing hormone (LH), testosterone, follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), estrone 3-glucuronide (E(1)3G) and pregnanediol 3-glucuronide (Pd3G) concentrations in first morning urine. We evaluated the relationships over time between Tanner stage and each biomarker using repeated measures analysis. RESULTS: Among girls still reporting Tanner breast stage 1 at the final visit, FSH levels increased over the 6-month follow-up period and were no longer lower than higher stage girls at the end of follow-up. We observed a similar pattern for testosterone in boys. By visit 3, boys still reporting Tanner genital stage 1 or pubic hair stage 1 had attained DHEA levels that were comparable to those among boys reporting Tanner stages 2 or 3. CONCLUSIONS: Increasing concentrations of FSH in girls and DHEA and testosterone in boys over a 6-month period revealed the start of the pubertal process prior to changes in self-rated Tanner stage. Repeated, non-invasive endocrine measures may complement the more subjective assessment of physical markers in studies determining pubertal onset.