Hand Wrist Radiographs - Are They Really Required As Maturation Indicators????

Objective: To find the suitable alternative for hand wrist radiographs as skeletal maturity indicators to avoid unjustified radiation exposure to patients. Material and Methods: Sample consisted of 160 subjects, including 83 males and 77 females. Hand wrist assessment using Bjork, Grave and Brown, cervical vertebrae assessment with Modified Cervical Vertebrae stages was done. Results: Results showed a highly significant correlation between hand wrist stages and cervical vertebrae maturation stages with a very high Spearman's correlation coefficient (O= 0.82) Conclusion: Cervical vertebrae assessment proved to be a suitable alternative to hand wrist method for skeletal maturity determination.