Relationship between Traube's space and body mass index

Abstract

Objectives:Traube's space is located in the precordial area of the anterior chest wall and is used in the evaluation of spleen size;therefore, proper evaluation during physical examination is extremely important. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between Traube's space, detected by Castell's method, and body mass index (BMI). Methods: Twenty-one male and 14 female subjects were evaluated by the same physician with percussion method, in 2007and 2010. Traube's space was determined on the thoracic wall and its shape was drawn on transparent paper. The drawings were scanned and the images were transferred to a personal computer (PC). The area of Traube's space on each imagewas calculated using Digimizer software. BMI was calculated by the body weight/(height)2formula. The data were evaluated with SPSS 13.0 software. To compare the data obtained in 2007 and 2010, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used. Results: The BMI of males increased by 9.24% in three years, and the surface area of Traube's space in males decreased by36.02% in this period. The differences in BMI and Traube's space were statistically significant (p<0.05). The BMI of femalesincreased by 2.39% in three years, but the difference was not statistically significant (p>0.05). The surface area of Traube'sspace of females decreased by 28.23% in this period, the difference was statistically significant (p<0.05). Conclusion:The data obtained in this study are suggested to be useful for evaluation of Traube's space and spleen size duringphysical examination in terms of gender and BMI.