Premature sexual development (PSD) in girls describes the appearance of secondary sexual signs before the age of 8 years. Early puberty is diagnosed if pubertal signs appear between the age of 8 and 9 years. We found a positive association between the levels of organochloride pesticides (p,p'-DDE) in precocious puberty in girls adopted from developing countries and significantly higher levels than in native Belgian girls with the same condition.
We have compared the serum levels of eight p,p'- DDE in 56 Macedonian girls with PSD and a control group of 24 normal, age-matched girls, using a gas chromatographic analyzer coupled to a tandem mass spectrometer detector. Of the 56 girls with PSD, 42 had premature thelarche, five had early puberty, and nine had precocious puberty of idiopathic (