Growth indicators in orthodontic patients. Part 1: Comparison of cervical vertebral maturation and hand-wrist skeletal maturation

Authors:

ABSTRACT

Aim

The purpose of this study was to predict the skeletal maturation status based on the assessment of cervical
vertebrae from lateral cephalometric radiographs and to compare these findings with the skeletal maturity of the same
individuals judged from the hand-wrist radiographs.

Methods

Lateral cephalometric and left hand-wrist
radiographs of 393 Caucasian children from 8 to 18 years old were evaluated. On the hand-wrist radiographs the
classification of Bjork [1972] and Grave and Brown [1976] was used to assess skeletal maturity (HWSS). Cervical vertebral
maturation was also evaluated on lateral cephalometric radiographs using the improved CVMS method described by Baccetti,
Franchi, and McNamara [2002]. These methods were correlated using the chi-square test.

Results

The chi-square test
showed that skeletal maturational values obtained by the CVMS method were significantly correlated with the skeletal values
obtained from the hand-wrist analysis for both genders (p<0.05). However, gender differentiation exists in CVMS method regarding the peak of growth spurt.

Conclusion

The results of this study show that the CVMS method was compatible
with a commonly used hand-wrist analysis method. The lateral cephalometric radiograph belonging to the standard set of
records would be sufficient to evaluate skeletal maturity.

PLUMX METRICS