Radiological Estimation of Age from Hand Bone in Sudanese Infants and Toddlers

Age determination is one of the most important factors for identification. Unfortunately, births are not recorded regularly in Sudan, especially in rural areas. However, identification of age is very important for a variety of reasons, including identifying legal and criminal responsibility, and for many other social events such as beginning a job, marriage, retirement and joining the army. The study aimed to find the reliability of using international methods to estimate bone age of people through hand bone radiograph in Sudanese people by studying the reliability of using hand bone age “the digital atlas of hand age” which depended on Greulich and Pyle (GP) and Tanner and Whitehouse (TW2/3) methods in Sudanese people in exact group of age, and to compare the hand and wrist bone development between Caucasian and Sudanese people. The study was conducted on 48 samples (26 males and 22 females) from the center of Sudan. The study was made by conventional X-Ray taken from Sudanese newborn babies to 2 and 3 years old for males and females respectively. Those images were taken mostly from the emergency and orthopedic outpatient departments. The ages were grouped in the same ways and periods used in the atlas. So the criteria were tested, and the outcomes were compared with international standards in the atlas of hand bone age. There is evidence that skeletal maturation may vary between difference ethnic and socioeconomic groups of children or among children living in various geographical locations. It is found that there is reliability and applicability of using the atlas in Sudanese people with considering that there might be mild variations between Sudanese and Caucasian people’s hand and