Growth hormone treatment might help in increasing upto 8 cms height in child’s final height. Swedish researchers have claimed that it might increase 20 cm height in few cases.

Kerstin Albertsson-Wikland, MD, PHD, professor of pediatrics at the University of Gothenburg, was the study's lead author. The researchers conducted study on 151 children. Some of these children were given no treatment; others two different doses of growth hormone, given for an average of nearly six years. The effects and results were followed over a period of up to 20 years, until they reached their final height.

The treatment can cost " approximately $35,000 per inch of height gained," according to an editorial published in the same journal three years ago.

But there are dissensions over its use. Dr. Harvey Guyda, chairman of the department of pediatrics at McGill University in Montreal, suspects a child who gains 20 cm on hormone therapy "clearly is a child who didn't need growth hormones, who was destined to see that height gain."

The study is called an important one by Wayne Moore, MD, section chief of pediatric endocrinology at Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics and professor of pediatrics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City told WebMD that the new study, "proves to me conclusively that GH [growth hormone] therapy is of significant benefit in children who have non-GH deficient short stature, defined by current criteria."