Setting up an automated system for evaluation of bone age.

The "Tanner-Whitehouse 2" method is the most popular in evaluating skeletal maturation, but this method has some inherent weak points. We therefore developed the new system to automatically evaluate the skeletal maturation of Japanese children by means of a personal computer. The subjects of this study were 318 healthy Japanese boys and 199 girls ranging from 2 to 15 years of age.