Radiographic evaluation of bone maturations in children and adolescents living in Erzurum using Greulich-Pyle method

Objectives: Bone age (BA) is used in age determination for a number of medico-legal reasons. One of the most commonly used radiographic methods in BA assessment is to compare hand-wrist radiographs with a standard reference. In this study, Greulich-Pyle (GP) method was used to determine the bone maturation values of a population of children and adolescents living in the city of Erzurum, Turkey. Methods: Hand and wrist radiographs of 507 individuals (243 boys and 264 girls) aged between 7–19 years were evaluated and the BA was estimated by a radiologist using the GP method. Difference between estimated BA and chronological age (CA) was analyzed. Results: In boys, except for the ages of 12,13 and 17 years, BA was significantly lower than the chronological age. In girls, BA was significantly lower than CA at 7, 8, 18 and 19 years of age, but not statistically different in the other ages. Conclusion: According to the GP atlas, it is suggested that many factors including high altitude, cold climate, environment, nutrition, genetics, ethnics and socio-economic diversities might cause differences between BA and CA. Our results obtained in this study suggest that this method can guide the determination of bone age in children living in Erzurum, Turkey. However, in certain age groups for both genders, the GP method significantly underestimated skeletal age.