Investigation the reliability of cervical vertebrae to determine skeletal age in Turkish girls: A retrospective study

The aim of this study was to investigate the reliability of the cervical vertebral skeletal age method determined by Mito et al. on Turkish girls, to derive a new skeletal age method specific to Turkish girls; to detect pubertal growth peak indicator by analyzing parameters in our new method. In the first phase of our study 395 Turkish girls aged 8,0-15,9 years were divided into 8 groups. Their cervical vertebral bone age were calculated on a computer program with the method developed by Mito et al. The correlation between chronological age and cervical vertebral bone age was high but we deciced to derive a new method specific to Turkish girls. In the second phase, 115 girls (8,0-15,9 years) were selected to determine the reliability of new cervical vertebral bone age method. This group consisted of girls who had the same chronological and hand-wrist bone age. The correlation between cervical vertebral bone age and both chronological and hand-wrist bone age were excellent. In this group subjects were divided 'prepeak, peak, postpeak' groups. We tried to find growth peak indicator in our method or our morphometric measurements, however no evidence about it was asessed. According to our results cervical vertebral bone age determined by Mito at al. and the chronological age of Turkish girls was correlated. The new cervical vertebral bone age had high correlation with chronologial age and hand-wrist bone age of Turkish female individuals. However there is no result that indicated pubertal growth peak in our new formula and measurements. Key words: cervical vertebrae, skeletal age, reliability