Body Mass Index as a Predictor for Diagnosis of Associated Injuries in Femoral Head Fracture Patients: A Retrospective Study

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the relationship between associated injuries (AI) suffered at time of accident in femoral head fracture (FHF) patients with age, sex, location of FHF (right or left leg), height, weight and body mass index (BMI) with using Pipkin classification.Method: we retrospectively identified patients between January 2003 to September 2017 with FHF in our hospital database. The patients were divided in two groups; with AI and without AI. These two groups where then statistically studied against selected the variables.Results: 72 patients were eligible with an average followup of 17 months. There were 57 males (79.2%) and 15 females (20.8%). We had 33.8% cases of type I, 28.4% type II, 13.5% type III and 23.3% type IV. We found no association between age, sex, height, weight and location of FHF with the groups with or without AI. The ratio of lighter weight (<57 kg) to heavier weight (>57 kg) patients was 2:3 for AI respectively. Patients with height <167 cm had 72.2% reported cases of AI while 72.3% for those >167 cm. A 50-50% reported cases for with or without AI on left and right leg. However there is a significant association between BMI and the groups with or without AI. Patients with BMI <23 kg/m 2 had higher chances of suffering from AI as well as having longer follow-up than their heavier peers (BMI >23 kg/m 2 ). Conclusion:On the basis of this dataset, the BMI of FHF patient is a critical factor to consider in the diagnosis of associated injuries suffered at time of accident.