ABSTRACT
The hand-wrist method and cervical vertebral maturation [CVM] are two common diagnostic approaches to assess skeletal 'maturity in clinical orthodontics. The objective of this study was to evaluate the correlation between CVM method and hand-wrist method in estimating the skeletal maturity level of Saudi male children. Lateral cephalograms and hand-wrist radiographs of 145 Saudi male children ranging from 10 to 15 years of age were utilized. The CVM method of Franchi and Baccetti [Franchi and Baccetti, 2002] was used to analyze the maturational morphologic characteristics of the cervical vertebrae from lateral cephalometric radiographs; whereas Bjork's skeletal maturity standards [Bjork, 1972] were utilized to determine the skeletal maturity stage from hand-wrist radiographs. Skeletal age for each subject was established using Greulich and Pyle's standard hand and wrist radiographic atlas [Greulich and Pyle, 1959]. The mean chronological age of the sample was 12.13 +/- 1.54 years, while the mean skeletal age was found to be 11.51 +/- 1.9 years. High correlation [0.89, P<0.01] was established between CVM stages and hand-wrist skeletal maturity stages. The findings of this study suggest that CVM method is a valid and reliable method to assess skeletal maturity in Saudi male children