Value of MRI of the hand and the wrist in evaluation of bone age: Preliminary results

Purpose To evaluate bone age determination using MRI of the hand and wrist. Materials and Methods A total of 179 (78 female and 101 males, 11 to 16 years old) subjects of 252 normal volunteers met entrance criteria. A low field open magnet (0.2 Tesla) was used for this study; coronal T1-weighted images with a slice thickness of 1.3 mm were acquired. Two blinded radiologists evaluated the studies and the following elements were considered: the appearance of cartilage, vacuolization of cartilage, provisional calcification, progression of ossification, and complete ossification. Correlation between chronologic age and MR bone age was determined by means of simple linear regression analysis. Results Strong correlation between MR skeletal age and chronological age was observed for both investigators, Pearson correlation R-2 = 0.9 for each. Conclusion Determination of bone age with MRI is feasible and shows good interobserver reproducibility. Data from this study may be useful to develop an atlas of skeletal development and bone age. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2014;39:1198-1205. (c) 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc