Bone Age
Skeletal maturation is expressed as bone age or skeletal age. Bone age is based on the orderly appearance of the ossification centers and, therefore, on the successive stages of the development (or maturity) of the skeleton as seen on radiographs. This is not a measure of size, but rather of shape and position.
There are many methods of estimating bone age, and almost any part of the body can be used. The hand and wrist are the most practical and the most often used. The Greulich and Pyle method employs an atlas of examples of radiographs of the entire left hand and wrist of healthy children at various ages.
