title: Assessment of bone age in prepubertal healthy Korean children: comparison among the Korean standard bone age chart, Greulich-Pyle method, and Tanner-Whitehouse method.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To compare the reliability of the Greulich-Pyle (GP) method, Tanner-Whitehouse 3 (TW3) method and Korean standard bone age chart (KS) in the evaluation of bone age of prepubertal healthy Korean children.
  
  
  METHODS
  Left hand-wrist radiographs of 212 prepubertal healthy Korean children aged 7 to 12 years, obtained for the evaluation of the traumatic injury in emergency department, were analyzed by two observers. Bone age was estimated using the GP method, TW3 method and KS, and was calculated in months. The correlation between bone age measured by each method and chronological age of each child was analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient, scatterplot. The three methods were compared using one-way analysis of variance.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Significant correlations were found between chronological age and bone age estimated by all three methods in whole group and in each gender (R(2) ranged from 0.87 to 0.9, p < 0.01). Although bone age estimated by KS was slightly closer to chronological age than those estimated by the GP and TW3 methods, the difference between three methods was not statistically significant (p > 0.01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The KS, GP, and TW3 methods show good reliability in the evaluation of bone age of prepubertal healthy Korean children without significant difference between them. Any are useful for evaluation of bone age in prepubertal healthy Korean children.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Dankook University Hospital, Cheonan 330-715, Korea.
authors.forename: Jeong Rye
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Dankook University Hospital, Cheonan 330-715, Korea.
authors.forename: Young Seok
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Dankook University Hospital, Cheonan 330-715, Korea.
authors.forename: Jeesuk
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yu
mesh_terms: D000365:Age Determination by Skeleton / Q000379:methods*; D044466:Asian People; D002648:Child; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D005260:Female; D006225:Hand / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D056910:Republic of Korea; D014947:Wounds and Injuries
keywords: Bone age; Greulich-Pyle method; Korean standard bone age chart; Tanner-Whitehouse method