Correlation between the skeletal maturation stages of two radiographic methods in Peruvians

Abstract

Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the correlation between the skeletal maturation stages of a hand–wrist method and a cervical vertebrae method in a Peruvian population. Materials and Methods: A descriptive, analytical, retro-prospective, and cross-sectional study was performed. A total of 584 radiographs were analyzed, 292 lateral and 292 hand–wrist radiographs of 7–18-year-old patients from Lima, Peru. Bone maturation was assessed using Fishman's hand–wrist method and Hassel and Farman's cervical vertebral method. To determine the correlation between both methods, Kendall's tau-b, Kendall's tau-c, gamma, and Spearman's rho coefficients were performed. Significance level was set at 5%. Results: Strong and positive correlations were found among the stages studied by both methods; coefficients of 0.751, 0.746, 0.874, and 0.860 for Kendall's tau-b, Kendall's tau-c, gamma, and Spearman's rho, respectively, were found. At the same order, the coefficients for females were 0.761, 0.751, 0.884, and 0.865, while for males were 0.715, 0.687, 0.850, and 0.817. Conclusion: Strong correlation between the skeletal maturity stages by Fishman's hand–wrist method and Hassel and Farman's cervical vertebrae method in the sample studied was found. The correlation was slightly upper in women than men.