VARIATION OF BONE-AGE PROGRESSION IN HEALTHY-CHILDREN

Bone age assessments were related to auxological variables in 407 Ital ian boys, between 7 and 12 years of age, in order to elucidate the fac tors that affect the rate of skeletal maturation and to examine the po ssibility of using measures of skeletal maturation to evaluate individ ual patients. Using the radius-ulna-short bones (RUS) method of assess ment, bone age velocity was greater in the Italian boys than for the U K reference standards, although there was considerable interindividual dispersion around the mean. Bone age Velocity and height velocity wer e poorly correlated, and there was little correlation between skeletal and pubertal maturation. There was a slight positive correlation betw een bone age velocity and height SDS and between bone age velocity and body mass index. Bone age estimations using RUS were greater than tho se obtained using the carpus. In conclusion, the marked interindividua l deviation in measured bone ages makes it difficult to relate data on an individual basis to other measures of growth and maturation.