Authors: Qi Zhang Huaijun Liu Wei Chen Xicheng Li Zhaohui Song Jinshe Pan Yingze Zhang
Publish Date: 2009/03/10
Volume: 38, Issue: 12, Pages: 1175-1181
Abstract
Femoral fracture is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in elderly persons Surgery the main choice of treatment of femoral fracture may result in some complications severely affecting patients’ daily activities due to femoral malalignment The lesser trochanter is an important anatomical structure of the femur which could be used as an anatomical landmark during and after operation to evaluate femoral alignment To predict femoral rotational malalignment during surgery the relationship between the height and width of the lesser trochanter and femoral rotation at different angles was investigatedFifty healthy adult volunteers 25 men and 25 women were enrolled in this study and a total of 900 radiographs of proximal femurs were taken in the following positions neutral position 5° 10° 15° and 20° internal rotation and 5° 10° 15° and 20° external rotation respectively The craniocaudal and transverse diameters of the lesser trochanter were obtained on a PACS WorkstationThe height and width of the lesser trochanter increased with external rotation and decreased with internal rotation and the values showed statistical significance between different positions or different genders Between 20° of internal rotation to 20° of external rotation the mean height increased from 058 cm to 123 cm in men and from 044 cm to 119 cm in women The corresponding mean values for width were from 253 cm to 444 cm in men and from 208 cm to 386 cm in women respectively The height and width of the lesser trochanter were both highly correlated to the position of femur and the linear relationship was established approximately The morphological alteration of lesser trochanter also changed obviously when the femurs rotatedThe authors wish to thank Dr Linxiang Bi and Dr Yanling Su for their valuable input and efforts that have made significant improvement of the manuscript Special thanks also go to Dr Jianbo Liu and Dr Xiaoling Zhang for their suggestions and work on the part of data analysis
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