Possibility of radiophotometric indexing of bone structures of the thoracic spine in children and adolescents

Photometry of 6 radiographs of the thoracic spine of healthy children and adolescents aged 10 to 14 years was performed. Nine radiographs were obtained for one radiograph, for a total of 54. All photograms turned out to be identical. The data of X-ray photometric analysis showed that the optical density of the bone structures fixed in the photogram was relatively stable in each case. Asymmetry of optical density of bone structures was noted: it was higher on the left than on the right, especially at the level of D₆. The optical density of all bone structures was higher the lower the vertebra was located, i.e. the density of bone structures of the upper vertebra was lower than that of the lower vertebra, which could be explained by the overlaying of the mediastinal shadow on the left side, especially at the level of D_5-6-7-8. In all other cases, the asymmetry should be considered as a variant of the structure.