title: [Establishment of cervical vertebral skeletal maturation of female children in Shanghai].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To establish a method for quantitatively evaluating skeletal maturation of cervical vertebrae of female children in Shanghai.
  
  
  METHODS
  The samples were selected from lateral cephalometric radiographs of 240 Shanghai girls, aged 8 to 15 years. The parameters were measured to indicate the morphological changes of the third (C3) and fourth (C4) vertebrae in width, height and the depth of the inferior curvature. The independent-sample t test and stepwise multiple regression analysis were used to estimate the growth status and the ratios of C3, C4 cervical vertebrae by SPSS 15.0 software package.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The physical and morphological contour of C3, C4 cervical vertebrae increased proportionately with the increment of age. The regression formula for indicating cervical vertebral skeletal age of female children in Shanghai was expressed by the equation Y= -5.696+8.010 AH3/AP3+6.654 AH3/H3+6.045AH4/PH4 (r=0.912).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The regression formula resulted from morphological measurements quantitatively indicates the skeletal maturation of cervical vertebrae of female children in Shanghai.
authors: Department of Orthodontics, Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Stomatology, Shanghai 200011, China. sunyan173@126.com
authors: Yan
authors: Y
authors: Sun
authors: Rong-jing
authors: RJ
authors: Chen
authors: Quan
authors: Q
authors: Yu
authors: Li
authors: L
authors: Fan
authors: Wei
authors: W
authors: Chen
authors: Gang
authors: G
authors: Shen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000365:Age Determination by Skeleton; D002508:Cephalometry; D002574:Cervical Vertebrae; D002648:Child; D002681:China; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans