Morphological analysis of the skeletal development in lateral cephalometric radiographs of HIV infected children ongoing Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy

Background To investigate the skeletal development of HIV infected children through a morphological analysis of the cervical vertebrae (CV) in lateral cephalometric radiographs. Material and Methods The sample consisted of 86 lateral cephalometric radiographs of male and female children aged between 6 and 14 years old. The radiographs were equally distributed in groups 1 (HIV infected children) and 2 (non-infected children, paired by sex and age). Two examiners analyzed the CV according to the method of Hassel and Farman (1995). Spearman correlation coefficient was used to associate age and skeletal development within groups, while Mann-Whitney test compared the skeletal development between…