Age at Menarche in Egyptians

Abstract

Menarche constitutes in girls a precise index, both retro-spectively and prospectively, in the evolution of puberty. Many studies have been made of the menarcheal age (MA) as a single criterion, or as, a part of growth and development investigations. Most of the developed and some of the developing countries have established their mean menarcheal age (MMA). Tanner (1975) listed the MMA of 43 countries including Egypt (Nubians). The Egyptian Nubian sample was 326 subjects (Hussien, 1971). Other Egyptian authors have studied the MA: Hidayat (1972) estimated the MMA of 8,188 girls aged 10.5 to 17.92 years in schools in Alexandria. Of these, the 1,007 girls who were recently regularly menstruating and who were thoroughly studied were representative of the low, middle, and high social classes, but the subjects were drawn mainly from the low socio-economic one (67%); More recently, Attallah (1978) studied 1,365 Egyptian girls attending eight different schools in the Cairo region and in rural areas which represent three different socio-economic sectors — very poor agricultural, middle, and high urban classes.