BASIC Study: Bone Age Study In Children

NHS Foundation Trust

Status: Completed

Conditions: Skeletal Age Maturation

Treatments: Device: Hand outline

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04216914

SCH/13/048

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study will see if the introduction of a hand outline on the Xray plate on which the child rests their hand will improve the quality of the Xray and reduce exposure to additional radiation by not having xrays repeated. The child will be asked to stretch their hand flat to match the outline, thus ensuring the correct position.

Full description

The study of left wrist/hand Xrays can help children's doctors to ascertain the age of a child's skeleton, know how much growing they still have to do and predict how tall they will be as an adult. The Xray requires the child to keep their hand flat and still and in the correct orientation. Some children, especially young ones, find this difficult and therefore the quality of the Xray can mean that aging the skeleton is difficult and may require the Xray to be taken again.

This study will see if the introduction of a hand outline on the Xray plate on which the child rests their hand will improve the quality of the Xray and reduce exposure to additional radiation by not having xrays repeated. The child will be asked to stretch their hand flat to match the outline, thus ensuring the correct position.

Enrollment: 56 patients

Sex: All

Ages: Under 20 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Children who are having a bone age Xray as part of their endocrinological hospital management.

Exclusion criteria

• Patients who do not give informed consent to be included in the study.
• As this study is very small and non externally funded, we will not be able to produce translations of the information sheets and consent/assent forms. This means that where patients are unable to fully give informed consent due to language barriers, they will be excluded from the study.
• )Any child with a left hand abnormality making them unable to place their hand flat e.g. contractures will be excluded.
• Any child too young or with significant enough learning difficulties making their compliance with the instructions too problematic. This will be at the discretion of the medical professional consenting the patient and the radiographer.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Diagnostic

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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56 participants in 1 patient group

Use of hand outline for bone age xray

Experimental group

Description:

Where children and young people are having left hand X-rays for clinical purposes the radiographer will place a template under their hand. The plate is designed not to show up on the X-ray and to not interfere with the X-ray itself. They will be asked to match their hand to the hand outline on the template.

Treatment:

Device: Hand outline