title: Comparative study of Greulich and Pyle Atlas and Maturos 4.0 program for age estimation in a Portuguese sample.
abstract: Age estimation of living individuals has become one of the big issues of forensic anthropology. The increase of children and adolescents with no valid proof of their chronological age is a legal concern to many countries, especially in situations of illegal immigration, sub adult delinquency and juvenile work. For this purpose, the use of radiological methods for evaluation of skeletal maturation is particularly useful. In this study we compare the two of the most common methods applied in age estimation by hand/wrist radiographs: the Radiographic Atlas of Skeletal Development of the Hand and Wrist made by Greulich and Pyle (GP), 1959,and the Sempé method developed for computer--Maturos 4.0 (MT) program. These methods were applied to a sample of 230 radiographs of the hand and wrist from Portuguese children and adolescents of known sex age and age, aged between 12 and 20 years, who performed medical examination at the University of Coimbra Hospitals during 2005. The methods achieved different performances, depending on the age group. Between 12 and 15 years the bone age with the MT program is closer to the chronological age, whereas in older ages the GP Atlas method is more trustworthy. At the ages with legal consequences in Portugal (16 and 18 years) the GP Atlas method is most accurate, namely to decide whether an individual is younger or older than 18 years. Around 16 years old, although there are doubts in relation to the accuracy of both methods, GP Atlas seems to perform better.
authors.affiliation: Forensic Sciences Centre, Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal, Largo da Sé- Nova, 3000-213 Coimbra, Portugal.
authors.forename: Cláudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Santos
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ferreira
authors.forename: Filipe Caseiro
authors.initials: FC
authors.lastname: Alves
authors.forename: Eugénia
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cunha
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000365:Age Determination by Skeleton / Q000379:methods*; D000367:Age Factors; D001699:Biometry / Q000379:methods; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D018732:Forensic Anthropology / Q000379:methods*; D006225:Hand / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D011174:Portugal; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012494:Sampling Studies; D012737:Sex Factors; D014953:Wrist / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D055815:Young Adult