著者

村田 光範

出版者

東京女子医科大学学会

雑誌

東京女子医科大学雑誌 (ISSN:00409022)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.67, no.臨時増刊号, pp.E2-E9, 1997-07-30

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Since the end of 2nd World War, Japan has seen quite rapid socioeconomical developments. With these developments the physical size of Japanese children has increased, but the final size, especially of the stature is still shorter than that of Caucasians. We have very interesting results from the investigation of skeletal growth in the children aged from 7 to 18 years old, using the TW2 bone age estimation method. The subjects were about 100 boys and girls in each age group from 7 to 18 years old in the Tokyo metropolitan area. In Japanese children the tempo of "RUS" maturation is almost equal to that of TW2 from 7 to 10 years old and from to 9 years old in boys and in girls respectively, but after 10 years old and 9 years old in boys and in girls respectively, the tempo is more rapid than that of TW2. Japanese children may have a different tempo of skeletal maturation during pubertal growth from that of Caucasian children. This difference in the tempo of skeletal maturation, probably genetic, between Japanese and Caucasians, especially that of RUS, during pubertal growth may be one of the main causes of the final difference in the stature of the two groups.