Can orthopaedic clinicians learn to read skeletal bone age? An inter- and intra observer study between specialties

Abstract

Objective: Determination of skeletal age is essential for predicting eventual leg length discrepancies and predicting the accurate timing for surgical intervention in order to correct any discrepancy. To our knowledge, there has not been an interdisciplinary comparison of the degree of agreement in determining skeletal bone age. Materials and methods: We evaluated 30 left hand/wrist radiographs (children aged 16 months to 10 years 6 months) on two separate occasions between musculoskeletal paediatric radiologists, paediatric orthopaedic surgeons and a senior radiographer after appropriate training. Results: All clinicians were able to reliably age patients with good intra- and interobserver agreement. Conclusion: We suggest that following tuition, orthopaedic surgeons are able to reliably age patients from X-rays. © 2010 EPOS.