Ultrasound clinical references of the healthy toenail unit

Abstract

The toenail unit, commonly called the nail, is one of the most frequently examined and treated structures in clinical podiatry. Ultrasound is a standard clinical technique because it is a noninvasive, painless, and rapid diagnostic tool. The main objective of this study was to obtain morphometric data of the healthy toenail unit by ultrasound for clinical application. The nails of 76 participants (152 hallux nails; 38 men, 38 women, average age 26.83 ± 12.20) were examined using a VINNO E35 ultrasound system and an X6-16L linear probe with a frequency of 18 MHz. Five ultrasound measures of the healthy toenail unit were obtained, of which only the distance from the center of the distal phalange to the nail plate varied with age, sex, weight, and foot (p-values ≤ 0.050). The other four parameters were less influenced by the variables analyzed, except sex, which influenced nearly all (p-values ≤ 0.050). In one of these variables, indications of significance were observed (p-values = 0.060), with greater distances in the men than in the women, except for nail plate curvature, which showed a higher value. The other variables studied did not influence the parameters analyzed. High-frequency ultrasound can be used to examine the healthy toenail unit and define anthropometric reference measurements that can be used for more accurate and comparative diagnosis.