Skeletal maturation of the hand and wrist and its correlation with dental development

The maturation status of each hand and wrist bone age of 117 12-year-old Southern Chinese girls was studied using the Greulich and Pyle Atlas (1959) Method. The bone ages were found to range from 12.14 years (scaphoid) to 12.80 years (middle phalanx V). The mean and standard deviation of the skeletal age of the hand and wrist region were 12.57 years and 1.11 years, respectively. Skeletal maturation of 102 of these Southern Chinese girls was correlated to the developmental status of their permanent dentition. A statistically significant difference with p < 0.01 was found between the skeletally above-average and skeletally below-average girls. Contrary to previous studies, the skeletally below-average group had on average 1.1 more erupted permanent teeth than the skeletally advanced group. In addition, there did not seem to be any close relation between apical closure of the permanent mandibular canine and bone age of the adductor sesamoid.