The evaluation of the relationship among various maturation indicators in Turkish subjects [Türk bireylerde çeşitli maturasyon indikatörleri arasindaki ilişkilerin değerlendirilmesi]

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of this study was to reveal the relationships among chronological age, dental age, cervical vertebral maturation and hand-wrist maturation. Materials and Methods: The study consisted of the panoramic, cephalometric and handwrist radiographs of 141 (79 female, 62 male) Turkish subjects aged between 7-18,10 years. The dental ages of the subjects were defined according to the Demirjian's method. The hand-wrist radiographs of the subjects were evaluated using Fishman maturation indicators. The maturation stages of the cervical vertebrae were evaluated with the method improved by Bacetti et al. The Spearman rank-order coefficients were estimated separately for males and females to measure the relationships among the variables. Results: The Spearman correlation coefficients were revealed a medium to high positive correlations among all variables (P<0.01). The correlation coefficients between hand-wrist maturation and cervical vertebra maturation were 0,815 and 0,792 for females and males, respectively. The lowest level of correlation in females was between hand-wrist maturation and dental age (rs: 0.472). In males, the lowest correlation coefficient was 0.461 that was between cervical vertebra maturation and dental age. Conclusions: The correlation between hand-wrist maturation and cervical vertebra maturation, and the correlation between chronological age and skeletal maturation defined by both methods were highly positive for both sexes. The correlation between dental age and cervical vertebra maturation was found as moderate in both sexes. The correlation between dental age and hand-wrist maturation was found as moderate in females; while the correlation was good in males. To define the pubertal growth spurt, cervical vertebra maturation could be used as an alternative to hand-wrist maturation assessment. However, the reliability of the dental age has to be proven by additional studies.