Comparative evaluation between cervical vertebral morphology and hand-wrist morphology for skeletal maturation assessment.

AIM: The aim of the study was to find a correlation between the evaluation of skeletal maturation performed by the study of cervical vertebrae maturation indicators and the evaluation obtained by the hand and wrist maturation indicators.
METHODS: Left hand wrist radiographs and the corresponding lateral cephalograms of 90 patients (48 males and 42 females; aged 6 to 14 years) were paired and a study group of 128 pair of radiographs was obtained, having some patients 2 or more radiographs at different times. Hand and wrist radiographs were evaluated according to the protocol proposed by Grave (scores 0 to 9); corresponding lateral cephalograms were evaluated according to the method reported by Baccetti (scores 1 to 5). Values obtained with the 2 methods were analyzed by Spearman's correlation test.
RESULTS: When the values were compared globally in the 2 genders a good correlation was obtained (r=0.795; P<0.001); when the correlation was compared separately in the 2 genders a better correlation was observed in females (r=0.84; P<0.001) than in males (r=0.70; P<0.001).
CONCLUSIONS: The results obtained clearly underline the accuracy of the skeletal maturation evaluation by the analysis of cervical vertebrae in laterolateral cephalograms which can substitute the hand and wrist radiograph for the skeletal maturation evaluation in orthodontic diagnosis.