J Korean Fract Soc.  2009 Jan;22(1):1-5. 10.12671/jkfs.2009.22.1.1.

The Usefulness of Hip to Thigh Ratio as an Anthropometric Indicator for the Incidence of Hip Fracture

• Park J
• Yang KH
• Moon SH

• KMID: 2183880
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.12671/jkfs.2009.22.1.1

Abstract

PURPOSE
To compare anthropometric indicators around the hip between osteoporotic fracture group and control group.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Thirty patients for osteoporotic hip fracture and the same number of patients for spine fracture who admitted our institute from November 2006 to March 2007 were matched with control patients without osteoporotic fracture. The waist circumference (WC), hip circumference (HC), thigh circumference (TC), and height were measured. From these measurements, waist to hip ratio (WHR), waist to thigh ratio (WTR), hip to thigh ratio (HTR), waist to height ratio (WHtR), hip to height ratio (HHtR), and thigh to height ratio (THtR) were calculated. All these indicators were compared between hip fracture and control group, and between spine fracture and control group.
RESULTS
Comparison between spine fracture and control group showed that the WC, WHR, WHtR were statistically significant, but all indicators failed to show accuracy in the ROC analysis. Comparison between hip fracture and control group demonstrated the TC, WTR, HTR, WHtR, HHtR, THtR were statistically significant. However, only the HTR showed fair accuracy in the ROC analysis. The area under the curve (AUC) of the HTR was 0.75 (95% confidence interval, 0.62 to 0.87) (p=0.001).
CONCLUSION
The HTR was fairly accurate in predicting the incidence of hip fracture compared with any other anthropometric indicators. Therefore, we can consider that the HTR has clinical usefulness.

Keyword

Femur; Hip fracture; Thigh circumference; Anthropometric indicator

MeSH Terms

Femur
Hip
Humans
Incidence
Osteoporotic Fractures
ROC Curve
Spine
Thigh
Waist Circumference
Waist-Hip Ratio

Figure

• 

  Fig. 1 Receiver operation characteristic (ROC) curve of hip to thigh circumference ratio (HTR) between hip fracture and control group shows that the area under the curve (AUC) representing the accuracy of HTR is 0.75 (95% confidence interval, 0.62 to 0.87) (p<0.05).

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