Title

Correlation of skeletal maturation indicators with chronological age in orthodontic patients

Authors

Manusmrati Mishra¹,*, Mounika Bonda², Jnananjan Chattopadhyay³, Romilkumar Shah⁴, Shivani Kumari⁵, Sargam Sortey⁶ & Miral Mehta⁷

Affiliation

¹Department of Oral Pathology, Microbiology and Forensic Odontology, Maharana Pratap College of Dentistry and Research Centre, Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India; ²Department of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopaedics, GITAM Dental College and Hospital, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India; ³Department of Dentistry, Murshidabad Medical College, Berhampore, Murshidabad, WB, India; ⁴Department of Orthodontics & Dentofacial Orthopedics, K M Shah Dental College & Hospital, Sumandeep Vidyapeeth Deemed to be University, Piparia, Waghodia, Vadodara, Gujarat, India; ⁵Department of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopaedics, SGT University, Gurugram, Haryana, India; ⁶Department of Pediatric and Preventive Dentistry, Swargiya Dadasaheb Kalmegh Smruti Dental College and Hospital, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India; ⁷Department of Pediatric and Preventive Dentistry, Karnavati School of Dentistry, Karnavati University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India; *Corresponding author

Email

Manusmrati Mishra - E-mail: manusmratimpurohit@gmail.com; Phone: +91 9669286011
Mounika Bonda - E-mail: mounikabonda1@gmail.com; Phone: +91 8121666353
Jnananjan Chattopadhyay - E-mail: janchattopadhyay@gmail.com
Romilkumar Shah - E-mail: drromils.kmsdch@sumandeepvidyapeethdu.edu.in
Shivani Kumari - E-mail: drshivanigdcm8@gmail.com
Sargam Sortey - E-mail: ssargam.26@gmail.com; Phone: +91 8149397158
Miral Mehta - E-mail: miralmehta@karnavatiuniversity.edu.in

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received August 1, 2026; Revised August 31, 2026; Accepted August 31, 2026, Published August 31, 2026

Abstract

Skeletal maturation assessment is important in orthodontic diagnosis and treatment planning because chronological age alone does not reliably reflect growth status. Hence, this cross-sectional observational study evaluated 100 orthodontic patients aged 8–18 years using lateral cephalograms for cervical vertebral maturation staging and birth records for chronological age. A strong positive correlation was found between skeletal maturation stages and chronological age (r = 0.82, p < 0.001), with females maturing earlier than males and significant differences in mean chronological age across CVM stages. Data shows that skeletal maturation indicators are reliable tools for assessing biological maturity and growth potential in orthodontic patients. Thus, we support the use of CVM staging as a practical and dependable method for identifying optimal timing for growth modification and comprehensive orthodontic treatment.

Keywords

Skeletal maturation, chronological age, cervical vertebral maturation, orthodontics, growth assessment, hand-wrist maturation.

Citation

Mishra et al. Bioinformation 22(8): 5417-5421 (2026)

Edited by

Vini Mehta

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.