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Fundamentals of Hand and Wrist Imaging pp 139–153Cite as

Normal Skeletal Development of the Hand

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Abstract

The use of radiography to assess the skeletal development of the hand is almost as old as radiography itself. This may not be surprising as, in fact, the first radiograph of human tissue was that of the hand of Mrs. Röntgen [1]. In 1898, barely 3 years after the discovery of röntgen rays, the orthopaedist J. Poland published the first description of skeletal changes in the hand. In his book entitled Skiagraphic Atlas Showing the Development of Bones of the Wrist and Hand, he presented positive reprints (skiagraphs) of hand radiographs of 19 British children, aged 1-17 years, describing each radiograph in great detail (Fig. 8.1) [2]. He thus in fact preceded Pryor (1907) and Rotch (1909), who are generally credited as being the first to describe the changes in the radiological appearance of hand and wrist bones [3, 4]. In later years several scoring techniques were introduced [5-7]. These techniques are based on one of the following three methods.

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Authors
  1. Rick R. van Rijn
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  2. Cornelis van Kuijk
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. IRCCS Hospital “Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza”, Viale Cappuccini, 71013, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy

    Giuseppe Guglielmi MD

  2. Academic Medical Center, Department of Radiology, University of Amsterdam, Meibergdreef 9, 1105 AZ, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Cornelis van Kuijk MD, PhD

  3. Department of Radiology, University of California at San Francisco, CA, 94143-0628, San Francisco, USA

    Harry K. Genant MD

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© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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van Rijn, R.R., van Kuijk, C. (2001). Normal Skeletal Development of the Hand. In: Guglielmi, G., van Kuijk, C., Genant, H.K. (eds) Fundamentals of Hand and Wrist Imaging. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-56917-3_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-56917-3_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-63225-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-56917-3

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