Relación existente entre el tamaño del seno frontal con los estadios de maduración ósea

Abstract

The skeletal age has been diagnosed by several radiographic methods, the most common being hand–wrist analysis, but we can also make use of cervical vertebrae and frontal sinus analysis. This last two methods can be observed in the lateral cephalometric radiograph. This is an observational comparative study that was realized in one hundred mexican patients between the ages of 8–16 at the Orthodontic Service of Hospital Infantil de Mexico. All children had a hand–wrist and a cephalometric radiograph taken. The patients were classified according to the nine stages of the Björk analysis. The frontal sinus were meassured and drawn according to the Ertürk method. The length of the frontal sinus offered the most significant results, although no important differences between gender were found. The nine stages were divided into three periods: A, B and C. The length of frontal sinus in period A enclosing stages I, II and III, was 24 mm. Period B included stages IV through VIII, having a 26 mm. mean. Period C corresponds to stage IX having 27.9 mm. mean. This study suggests that the frontal sinus is a reliable structure when related to maduration stages, although it is not a substitution of the hand wrist radiograph analysis.