A study to assess the carrying angle in children aged between 8 to 16 years of age

Abstract

Background: The arm and forearm not in straight line when the elbow is completely extended and supinated; rather, it is displaced to lateral, and an angle known as carrying angle created between long axis of arm and forearm. Among children most common type of fracture seen in the elbow region is Supracondylar fracture. Any mal-union or Inaccurate reduction in these fracture will result in disabling and unsightly cubitus varus deformity. In order to prevent such defects pre-operative assessment of the deformity need to be done with a knowledge of carrying angle at that particular age of the children. Objectives: To define the normal values of the elbow carrying angle in particular age groups among children. Materials and Methods: The present cross sectional study was conducted by the Department of orthopaedics, Dr. D. Y. Patil Hospital at Kolhapur from January 2021 to June 2022. A total of 1000 children who belonged to aged group of 8 to 16 years of age were evaluated for the measurement of carrying angle during the study period by probability sampling with equal distribution of subjects in both the gender and in the age group of 8-16years. Results: The elbow carrying angle was found to be progressively increasing with the age among both the boys and girls and the difference was found to be statistically insignificant till 12 years. The Carrying angle showed peak around the age of 14 years and plateaued and further there was decrease in the angle as age advances. The correlation coefficient r is highest with age in boys and girls while the r values with other variables show only negligible correlation. Conclusion: Overall, it is approved that elbow carrying angle increased with age due to skeletal maturity. The gender, elbow carrying angle is usually higher in girls compared to boys; respectively however, it can't be same always cause of inter-observer and individual variability.