Ryo Miyagi1, 2, Eiko Yamabe1, Yasuhiko Terada3, Saki Kono3, Daiki Tamada3, Tomomi Uchiumi3, Katsumi Kose3, Hiroshi Yoshioka1
1Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California Irvine, Orange, CA, United States; 2Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Tokushima University, Tokushima, Japan; 3Institute of Applied Physics, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
The purpose of this study was to assess skeletal age using MRI and evaluate its validity. A total of 93 Japanese healthy children aged from 4.1 to 15.1 were recruited from the local community. There was a strong positive correlation between chronological age and skeletal age by MRI using the TW-Japan RUS system. The intra-reader and inter-reader reproducibility for the MRI skeletal age assessment were high. Disagreement of skeletal stage by MRI between readers was most frequently seen in the ulna and fifth metacarpal bone. MRI could be a non-invasive and non-radiation method of assessment of skeletal age.
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