Most girls who had PSD and the girls in the control group came from the capital, Skopje, and also from towns in the Republic of Macedonia. They were referred to the Pediatric Clinic by their family doctors. Figure 1 shows the towns in the Republic of Macedonia from which the girls (and numbers) originate.

Of the 56 girls with PSD, 42 had premature thelarche, five had early puberty, and nine had precocious puberty of idiopathic (n = 8) or organic (n = 1) origin. Traces of p,p’-DDE were found in nine girls (16%), while 41 (73%) had negative results and six (10%) had a mean value of 1.17 ± 0.7 µg/L. In the control group, traces of p,p’-DDE were found in one girl (4%), while 18 had negative results (75%) and five (20%) had a mean level of 1.18 ± 0.6 mg/L. There were no significant differences between the levels of p,p’-DDE in both groups. PSD: P1 = 14/56 = 0.25; controls: P2 = 6/4 = 0.25, P1-P2 = 0.

The mean level of lindane in the PSD group was 1.2 ± 0.8 µg/L, and in the control group 1.4 ± 0.8 µg/L. A significantly larger proportion of girls who tested positive for lindane in the control group (p <0.05) than in the PSD group (t = 0.39/0.121 = 3.233 t-test). This comparison was performed using unpaired Student’s t-test. PSD: P1 = 18/56 = 0.32; controls: P2 = 17/24 = 0.71, P1–P2 = 0.32– 0.71 = (0, 39), S P11p = 0.121 (standard error for both groups). Figure 2 shows the levels of lindane and p,p’-DDE in the PSD and control group.