Journal of AdvancedMedical and Dental Sciences Research

Background: The evaluation of skeletal age is essential in many orthodontic treatment approaches, especially regarding the correction of skeletal imbalance. The present study was conducted to assess skeletal age assessment based on hand-wrist and cervical vertebrae radiography. Materials & Methods: 120 subjects of both genders were subjected to lateral cephalograms and hand wrist radiographs were taken. Lateral cephalograms was taken with the head stabilized by ear rods and nasal support The Frank for thorizontal plane was set parallel to the floor, and the teeth were in centric occlusion. Skeletal age was determined on the hand-wrist radiographs according to the method of Greulich and Pyle. Morphometric changes of the vertebral bodies C2 through C4 were measured (concavity, anterior height, and angle). Results: Out of 120, males were 50 and females were 70.Excellent correlations were found for concavity of C2,C3, and C4 as well as for anterior height of C3 andC4. Although statistically highly significant, angle C3 had only a low correlation coefficient and angle C4 did not correlate at al. There was agreement of calculated skeletal age (CSA) of the Greulich and Pyle hand-wrist assessment. There was an agreement of chronologic age with the Greulich and Pyle hand-wrist assessment. Conclusion: Morphometric assessment of age-dependent changes in chronologic age had advantage over cervical spine.