HEALTH BABY
Uncover the mysteries of height and bone age
Guests of this issue
Li Fen: Deputy Chief Physician, graduated from the University of South China School of Medicine in 2008 for clinical medicine. So far, he has been working in pediatrics for more than ten years, with rich clinical experience and rich clinical experience in the diagnosis and treatment of common multiple diseases in pediatrics. Now he is mainly responsible for the work of child health care outpatient clinics, and serves as a member of the Hunan Preventive Medicine Association's Child Science Popularization Professional Committee and the Early Life Development and Disease Prevention and Control Professional Committee. He has studied in the Children's Health Care Institute, Rehabilitation Department and Hunan Provincial People's Hospital Children's Medical Center. Carry out bone age evaluation, and specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of infant feeding, children's growth and development deviations, short stature, precocious puberty, children's nutritional diseases, and children's developmental behavior disorders.
01
Is it necessary to take a child for bone age testing?
First of all, let's understand what bone age is.
1. The age of life is the age calculated from the moment of birth (that is, the age we often say)
2. Biological age, which is the age inferred from the normal human physiological and anatomical development state, can reflect the maturity of physical development, and there may be obvious individual differences in this age. The age of life does not fully reflect the developmental maturity of the body and needs to be judged by the assessment of biological age.
Currently, the most widely used method of evaluating biological age is to measure bone age, which is a common tool used by our pediatricians.
02
How is bone age testing done?
The most common way to measure bone age in our lives is to go directly to the radiology department of the hospital to take an X-ray of the left wrist, and then the doctor judges the bone age according to the results of the film, and finally gets the age of the bone, which is simple and convenient and cheap, and basically every hospital can provide.
03
Is there a difference between bone age testing and bone density testing?
These are two completely different concepts. Bone density testing is a measure of bone mineral density in the human body to determine whether there is a risk of osteoporosis.
04
How to determine whether bone age is normal?
To see the difference between bone age and age, those within ± 1 year of age belong to normal development, the difference is within ± 2 years old is early or late, the difference is ± and over 2 years old is abnormal development.
Abnormalities in bone age are often an aspect of certain endocrine disorders in pediatrics. Many diseases will affect bone development, such as growth hormone deficiency or hypersecretion, abnormal thyroid function, precocious puberty or sexual retardation, chromosomal malformations, systemic diseases, etc., will affect bone age, making it ahead or backward.
05
What are the factors that affect bone age?
1. Short stature: short stature, height is always shorter than children of the same age, height growth rate is significantly slowed down, may be accompanied by bone age lag.
2. Precocious puberty: If boys enter puberty before the age of 9 and girls enter puberty before the age of 8, then puberty will end early, the epiphysis will close early, it will be two years longer than children of the same age, and your child may grow sharply at first, but later it will be much shorter than other children
3. Obesity, overweight: Affected by genes, diet and living habits, more and more children are overly obese, affecting the growth of the epiphysis. Although obese children will be taller than their peers in the short term, the increase in endocrine levels in the body accelerates the growth of the epiphysis, causing bone age to advance and affecting the final height.
06
Are the results of the bone age test accurate?
Bone age is able to intuitively detect the child's development, not only to determine the child's biological age, but also to predict the future development of the role. Some parents think that their children are developing normally and there is no need for bone age testing, which is also wrong. Because this is only a superficial phenomenon of the child, not a scientific analysis, only through the bone age test can we judge whether the child's development is normal. Therefore, it is very necessary to give your child a bone age test.
07
Is there radiation for bone age films?
The radiation received by the environment we live in is everywhere, such as walking in the sun and using mobile phones. In fact, the dose of radiation received per bone age film is less than 0.00012mSv, which is equivalent to 2 minutes of flying or walking in the sun for 20 minutes, which is a small amount of radiation and has little impact on the health of children.
08
How old can A child have a bone age test?
It is necessary to decide according to the actual development of the child, as well as the parents' attention to the height of the child, infants and young children under 3 years of age, because the ossification center has not yet been completed, unless it is suspected of monitoring when there is a major disease, it is not recommended to routine monitoring; and most boys at the age of 16, girls at the age of 14, the epiphyseal line will be completely closed, has basically lost the potential to grow tall, the significance of assessment is not significant. If there are children with developmental abnormalities, excessive obesity, suspected precocious puberty that I just mentioned. It is recommended to consult a professional doctor as early as possible, who will evaluate and decide whether bone age tests are needed.
Taojiang County People's Hospital Child Health Clinic
Court Supervisor: Yang Yongzhong, Hu Zhisheng, Shi Jun
Edit by Eve
Reviewed by Huang Lin
Supervisor Lu Yan