Correlation between cervical and hand-wrist analysis for skeletal maturation in Mexican boys and girls of the children’s General Hospital of Mexico «Federico Gomez»

Abstract

Hand-wrist radiographs have been used to determine the variations of skeletal maturation by many researchers. The morphology of cervical vertebrae has been used to assess skeletal maturation and its possible relationship with facial growth. The aim of the following article was to determine the correlation between the growth stages in the cervical and hand-wrist bone maturation analysis in Mexican boys and girls ages 9 to 16 years at the Children’s Hospital of Mexico «Federico Gomez» during 2011. Methodology: Lateral headfilms and hand-wrist radiographs from 194 files of the Orthodontics Department of the Children’s Hospital of Mexico «Federico Gomez» were examined. The exclusion criteria were: patients with craniofacial syndromes, growth disorders and metabolic disorders that affected growth. The values obtained for skeletal maturation from both analysis were analyzed through the SPSS v.17.0 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) software using the Spearman test to study the correlation between the two analyses. Results: A high correlation (0.89) was found between the Fishman’s hand-wrist analysis and the Lamparski cervical analysis. It was also found that the largest correlation by age was at the age of 9 (0.94). The smallest correlation by age was at 16 years old (0.68). The average age was 12.7 years. Conclusions: Lateral headfilms are a valuable auxiliary to predict the growth spurt. In some cases, it may not be necessary to obtain a hand- wrist radiograph since the information of the vertebrae might be sufficient to determine the skeletal maturation stage.Key words: Skeletal maturation, growth, cervical and hand-wrist analyses.