The correlation between bone age and chronological age based on the results of the MRI knee in adolescents and young adults

Abstract

Forensic bone age estimation of living adolescents and young adults is becoming increasingly important in today’s society because of the increase in migration, Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), another X-ray-free examination method, has already been successfully used to estimate the age of living young men and women for forensic purposes. Concerning the knee, rare MRI studies evaluated its potential forensic interest in bone maturation study. Use of an imaging modality with no radiation risk could have great advantages from forensic, legal and ethical standpoints. The aims of our study were indicate the correlation between bone age and chronological age based on the results of the MRI knee in adolescents and young adults. Material and Methods: A total of 489 MRI scans of the knee were reviewed retrospectively in patients aged from 14 to 40 years old (346 males, 133 females). Five original MRI stages were defined to assess the degree of maturation of the distal femoral and proximal tibial epiphyses and 4 size group were defined to assess the size of growth plate in sagittal and coronal view. Results: The results of this study showed that the mean age of individuals in the growth plate stages is correlated and this is statistically significant and also the difference between mean ages in groups is significant. And the variation in age is associated with changes in the size of the growth plate, so that by changing the size of the tibia's growth plate every millimeter, the average age of the target community varies by 8.63 years. In both sexes, the changes of growth plates (proximal tibial or distal femoral) were associated with age (p < 0.001)