Measurement of thoracic cage indexes with X-ray film in 3-17 years old healthy children / 中华胸心血管外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective By measuring the thoracic cage index with chest X-ray film in 3-17 years old healthy children,analyzing the bivariate correlations with age,to provide the reference data for evaluating and following up of chest wall deformity.Methods A retrospective study was conducted for 450 cases of health physical examination from May 2013 to March 2016 in our institution.The anterior intercostal space width(IS),the anterior rib width(RW),and thickness of the rib in the middle(RT) on the right side of 3-7 ribs have been measured in each patient.Statistical describing for each measurement index has been made,and Pearson correlation analysis was used to analyze the correlation between measurement values and ages.Results Each measurement index is strong positive correlated with age (0.6 ＜ r ＜ 0.8,P ＜ 0.05).Conclusion The anterior intercostal space width,the anterior rib width and the thickness of the ribs in the middle have a growing trend with age in children.It is indeed a useful way to measure thoracic cage data by using the chest X-ray film quantitative evaluation method.The measured values can be used as reference indexes.