Applicability of the skeletal age determination method of Tanner and Whitehouse for forensic age diagnostics

The present paper analyses the applicability of the clinically prevalent skeletal age determination method of Tanner and Whitehouse for forensic age estimation in living individuals. For this purpose, the hand X-rays from 48 boys and 44 girls aged 12-16 years were evaluated retrospectively. The minima and maxima, the mean values with their standard deviations as well as the medians with upper and lower quartiles, are presented for the skeletal ages 12-16 years estimated by the TW2 and TW3 methods. In the legally relevant skeletal age group 14-16 years, the differences between the skeletal age and the mean value of the chronological age were between -0.1 and +1.4 years for the TW2 method. For the TW3 method, the differences between the skeletal age and the mean value of the chronological age were between -0.4 and +0.2 years in the relevant age group. Due to the risk of serious overestimations, the TW2 method seems to be unsuitable for forensic age diagnostics. The application of the TW3 method for forensic age estimations can be recommended.