Ossification of epiphysial cartilages in the hand

Growth of Short Bones of the Hand in Children With Down's Syndrome

“…Differences in the number of children at the older ages are due to the increasing occurrence of epiphyseal fusion in these bones of the hand, especially in girls. Sex differences in mean diaphyseal lengths of short bones of the hand in this series of children with Down's syndrome are generally absent, and the diaphyses are consistently shorter than those of normal Czechoslovakian boys and girls (Krogman, 1941) and American Jewish girls (Hellman, 1928). For example, mean diaphyseal lengths of these children with Down's syndrome and those of normal children are compared by bone, age and sex in Figures 1 and 2 for the third ray (metacarpal 3 plus corresponding phalanges).…”

“…Differences of similar magnitude at the same ages are reported for stature (von Hofe, 1922;0ster, 1953;Dutton, 1959;Culley et at., 1963;Gustavson, 1964;Mosier et at., 1965;Roche, 1965Roche, , 1967Stimson et al, 1968;Bruskin, 1976), sitting height and length of the extremities in other samples of children with Down's syndrome (Brousseau, 1928;Wile and Orgel, 1928;Davenport, 1944;0ster, 1953;Keith, 1958;Rundle, 1963;Thelander and Pryor, 1966;Bruskin, 1976;Ikeda et al, 1977). The pattern of the mean annual increments of diaphyseal lengths of the hands in these children with Down's syndrome are similar to those of one or more samples of normal children (Roche, personal communication;Hellman, 1928). A normal pattern is evident also in the annual increments of tibial length in this sample (Rarick et al, 1966a).…”

“…Annual increments in the diaphyseal lengths of the nineteen short bones of the hand in boys and girls with Down's syndrome are presented in Tables 4 and 5 respectively. These increments were compared with the fiftieth and twenty-fifth percentiles of the annual increments for diaphyseal lengths in normal Australian children (twenty boys, and twenty girls; Roche, personal communication) and with the annual increments for diaphyseal length in normal American Jewish girls (Hellman, 1928). Between the ages of 9.5 and 13.5 years, the increments for these Down's children are, in general, not substantially different from the increments for the normal children.…”

“…However, pubescent spurts occurred in the elongation of the tibia of these children (Rarick et al, 1966a) but a spurt was not observed in bones of the hand. Occasionally, increments in diaphyseal lengths for the short bones of the hand in normal children have peaks at ages that might be considered pubescent growth spurts, but such spurts are irregular (Hellman, 1928;Roche, personal communication). In a later analysis, Roche and Hermann (1970) considered the few spurts in diaphyseal length of the normal children they studied did not cause a significant deviation from linearity.…”

Another Look at Skeletal Maturation Using Hand Wrist and Cervical Vertebrae Evaluation

“…In 1928, Hellman [6] published his observations on the ossification of epiphyseal cartilages of the hand. Greulich and Pylep [7] later made a radiographic atlas for the skeletal development of the hand-wrist.…”