Determination of bone age in children: A method based on a study of 1,129 white children

Abstract

M ANY elaborate treatises and monographs --~ have been written on osseous growth and the determination of skeletal age. Unfortunately, most of these reports are too complicated and involved to meet the needs of the busy pediatrician, endocrinologist, and child psychiatrist. Many physicians have stressed the need for a method for determining bone age ~hat would entail the leasg amount of expense to the patient and at the same time be both accurate and simple. present report is an attempt to presen~ a practical and inexpensive method for determining skeletal age in children. It is based on an analysis of data obtained at the Child Guidance Home. Every child admitted for observation at the Child Guidance Home is carefully studied from the endocrine standpoint. In comtection with this study, roentgenograms of the centers of ossification are made routinely on every child. As a result, it is possible to determine the skeletal or bone age o~ the child and to compare it with his ehronologieal age. As aptly expressed by Buehl and PyIe, 4 The concept of skeletal age is based on an aggregate of multiple maturity determinators. determinators most ~reque~itly used at the Child Guidance Home are roentgenograms of the hand and wrist, tt~e elbow, the shoulder, the pelvis, and the foot and ankle. In connection with this study, the roentgenograms of more than 2,100 white children were examined. Of this number, only 1,129 were used, the remainder being excluded because they were found to be roentgenograms of children suffering f r om various endocrine disorders or from marked nutritional dis turbane~ t)i the 1,129 children in this series, 704 were boys and 425 were girls. Their ages ranged from 21~ to 19 years.