A Retrospective Study of Bone Age Assessment of Chinese Children in Hong Kong Using a Digital Hand Atlas

PURPOSE: Contrary to the use of the traditional Greulich and Pyle atlas for bone age assessment, this project performed a retrospective bone age assessment of the Chinese children in Hong Kong using the computer-assisted detection (CAD) method of a digital hand atlas. METHOD AND MATERIALS: Existing hand films of normal children with known age and between 0 and 18 years were collected and digitized. Five images from each gender and each age group were collected. Two pediatrci radiologists with experience in reading pediatric hand images were invited to read the bone age of the images. The CAD algorithm already developed in the US for bone age assessment and tested on four racial groups was deployed at our Laboratory for assessment of the images collected on their bone age. Results of the bone age from the radiologists' reading and that of the CAD were compared. RESULTS: Except for the first age group, i.e. age 0-1, for which insufficient numbers were collected, the CAD method in general produced results close to the chronological age of the children as those of the radiologists' readings even though the CAD digital atlas does not include Chinese children in Hong Kong. CONCLUSION: The CAD hand atlas, trained for a specific racial group, can accurately assess the bone age of children. It also has the prospect of hooking up with the PACS for more efficient bone age assessment. CLINICAL RELEVANCE/APPLICATION: The method can be adopted for compilation of a regional digital hand atlas for assessment of the bone age the local population.