bone age

My daughter turned five years old in August.  She is small for her age because she was premature.  She weighed 1 lb 7oz at birth and was diagnosed with iugr.  She has just lately had a bone age test done which showed that the score for her bones were at 69 months when it should have been at 59 months old.  The doctor could not explain why this is and is referring us to an endocrinologist.  I do not understand why her bone age would be advanced and she is only in the 3rd percentile on the growth chart.  Could you please give me some insight on what could be causing this to happen and what would be the best route for us to take.

[Deanna L Aftab Guy, MD]

Sometimes bone ages are overinterpreted and the first thing that the peds endo will do besides a good history and physical is get a repeat bone age or read the film themselves, there is a normal range for each bone age and she may just be within her normal range. Advanced bone age is concerning for early puberty hormone effect as estrogen does advance the maturity of the growth plate, let your peds endo look into things, they will more than likely look at blood tests that address the adrenal gland hormones and the puberty hormones and maybe thyroid and repeat the xray themselves.
Then follow her in about 4 months for any changes.

[BDeuce]

A related discussion, How predictive is advanced bone age of final height at 10 years old with 13 year old bone age / what can be done? was started.

[froggiegirl03]

A related discussion, Bone age is older than actual age was started.