STABILITY OF METACARPAL-II DIMENSIONS IN BOYS DURING ADOLESCENCE

The stability of radiogrammetrically determined Metacarpal II (M II) b one dimensions was determined in 184 Belgian boys between 13 and 18 ye ars of age. Stability was assessed by Fisher z transformations of Pear son correlations between discrete measurement intervals and by structu red covariance analysis incorporating compound, banded, and autoregres sive models. Adjacent-age stability (1-year measurement interval) was high (0.82 less than or equal to r less than or equal to 0.97) for all metacarpal dimensions for all approaches, but stability coefficients decreased with increasing measurement interval for the correlational, banded, and autoregressive analyses. Despite the interval-related decl ine, correlations remained moderate to high, ranging between 0.65 and 0.97 for the correlational analyses and 0.58 and 0.91 for the covarian ce analyses, indicating a moderate to high degree of stability of M II dimensions in males during adolescence. Periosteal diameter demonstra ted the greatest stability of all metacarpal variables for all statist ical analyses. Of the covariance models, the compound model provided t he poorest fit to the data, and only for metacarpal length and periost eal diameter did the more complex (6 parameters) banded model provide a significantly better fit than the simpler (2 parameters) autoregress ive model. These results indicate that M II bone dimenions are fairly stable in males between 13 and 18 years of age and that the autoregres sive model, with the exception of metacarpal length and periosteal dia meter, provides as good a fit to the metacarpal data as the more compl ex banded model. (C) 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.