[Observation of cervical vertebrae and estimation of their bone age]

There are two objectives in this study: the first is to estimate skeletal age by lateral cephalomatric roentgengram of cervical vertebrae instead of X-ray of handwrist, the second is to study the rules of cervical vertebrae's growth and development of children from Beijing. The Auto CAD 12.0 computer software was used in measuring lateral cephalomatric roentgengrams of cervical vertebrae of 280 children from Beijing aged 9-15. The shape of cervical vertebrae of children with that of adults on X-ray films was compared, and the growth and development of cervical vertebrae of 9-15 years old children from Beijing was observed. We found out that the rapid growth period of cervical vertebrae was 12-14 years old for girls and 14-15 years old for boys. During puberty, the change of vertebrae's shape has no difference between male and female. 42 female and 28 male teenagers from the 280 aged 9-13 years old were taken X-ray films of left handwrist. The comparison between the films and roentgengrams shows that the appearance of sesamoid of hand and the concavity of the second vertebrae body is at the same time, which means that the beginning of rapid growth period can be estimated by the lateral cephalometric roentgengrams of cervical vertebrae.