Yuan Yuan is 14 years old, only 150 cm tall, and has basically not grown any more in the past year. Thinking about their daughter’s future schooling and job hunting, her parents were also anxious. Recently, they learned that Dr. Tang Shujing, a growth and development specialist, was in Xiaoshan District Hospital on Thursday morning for a long time, so they hurriedly brought their child here. After taking a bone age film of the child, Director Tang predicted that Yuan Yuan could only grow up to 151 centimeters according to his bone age, and Yuan Yuan cried when he learned this result.
According to Yuan Yuan’s mother, Yuan Yuan had her menstruation when she was 12 years old, so she thought that her child was still young and held the idea of waiting and seeing, which resulted in delaying her child, and now she regrets that she did not test her child’s bone age as early as possible. Yuan Yuan’s mother asked, “My child was tall in her class when she was 12, but now she’s 14, why is she not growing?” The doctor said, “Whether a child grows and how tall he/she grows depends mainly on the bone age, not the actual age of the child, and we can determine the child’s growth potential by testing the child’s bone age.”
What is bone age?
What does bone age have to do with a child’s height? Bone age is short for skeletal age, which refers to the age of skeletal growth, and it is a developmental age obtained by comparing the actual degree of development of a child’s bones with the standard degree of development. It represents to a large extent the child’s true level of development and it is more accurate to use bone age to assess the maturity of the body than the actual age.
The age of a person’s bones can be accurately measured with the help of x-rays, which are specific images of the bones in radiographs. It not only determines the biological age of the child, but also provides an early understanding of the child’s growth potential and the trend of sexual maturity, and predicts the child’s adult height. In addition, the determination of bone age is also helpful in the diagnosis of some pediatric endocrine diseases such as pituitary dwarfism, hypothyroidism, precocious puberty, and delayed sexual development.”
Spring is the prime time of the year for children to grow taller, and children with short and precocious puberty must take advantage of spring to leap taller. And whether the child can still grow, and how tall can grow, need to take a wrist X-ray to accurately determine, in order to identify the cause, as soon as possible to do to improve the treatment, not to leave the child regret!