Toward less intrusive pubertal assessment: longitudinal evaluation of tanner and non-tanner metrics in East African adolescents

The study examined less intrusive methods for assessing puberty in 200 boys aged 15-17 years in Southwestern Uganda over three years. Traditional Tanner staging consists of multiple metrics including pubic hair distribution, testicular volume, penile length, and scrotal color. The research found that pubic hair distribution was the best individual predictor of pubertal stage with 86.7 percent accuracy. A combination of pubic hair and scrotal color achieved comparable accuracy of 94.2 percent, which improved to 95.3 percent when axillary hair and age were added. The complete four-metric Tanner model achieved 99.3 percent accuracy. Researchers concluded that a minimally intrusive combination of pubic hair, scrotal color, axillary hair, and age can reliably predict pubertal stage without requiring invasive examination.