Ultrasound of femoral head cartilage: a new method of assessing bone age

Abstract

This paper analyses the relationship between the thickness of the anterior femoral head cartilage (FHC), as measured by ultrasound, and some anthropometric parameters, such as height, weight, skeletal and chronological age. In addition, it provides standard norms for FHC thickness in a paediatric population. Both hips were examined in 213 consecutive subjects (99 boys and 114 girls), aged 1.9-14 years. Seventy-four subjects underwent hand and wrist X-rays for skeletal maturation: 32 of these were dropped from the study because a discrepancy as high as two standard deviations was found between their skeletal and their chronological age. The thickness of FHC correlated strongly with skeletal and chronological age, standing height and body weight. A side difference of 0.2 mm in FHC was considered to be abnormal. The study population was divided into 13 groups according to chronological and values of FHC for boys and girls are provided for each group. It is suggested that the magnitude of hyaline FHC is valuable feature in the evaluation of skeletal maturation in children.

Radiographic versus ultrasound evaluation of the Risser Grade in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: a prospective study of 46 patients

“…Only few studies have mentioned sonography as an image-guided alternative to examine bone age [3,6,7,24,36]. Wagner et al [36] described a high correlation between sonographic and radiological Risser Grade evaluation.…”

Age determination using ultrasonography in young football players

“…[12] An alternative approach to evaluation of ossification is US of the overlying cartilage, with the thickness of the anterior femoral head cartilage being shown to be inversely related to chronological age. [10]…”

“…Thus, non-ionizing, radiation-based techniques have been developed for the estimation of skeletal age. [101112] Shimura and colleagues measured bone age ultrasonically with Sunlight Bone Age (SBA) and compared the results with radiographs. They showed that good correlation existed with SBA results and TW 2 and CASMAS methods.…”

Assessment of Measurement of Children's Bone Age Ultrasonically with Sunlight BonAge

“…Recently, sonographic measurement has broadly advanced in areas such as bone density, but sonographic skeletal maturity measurement has not been widely adopted. Castriota-Scanderbeg et al (5) demonstrated the ability of bone maturity assessment using sonographic evaluation of the thickness of the femoral head articular cartilage. The femoral head articular cartilage thickness is assessed and then translated to bone maturity using values obtained from a healthy Italian population (6).…”