Tamari Kotaro, Briffa N Kathy, Tinley Paul, Aoyagi Kiyoshi
School of Physiotherapy, Curtin University of Technology, Bentley, Western Australia, Australia.
J Rheumatol. 2007 Jan;34(1):145-50.
Associations between torsion of the lower limb and knee osteoarthritis (OA) appear to be inconsistent across populations. We examined whether femoral and tibiofibular torsion differed between people with and without knee OA (main effect), and whether the differences were consistent across Japanese and Australian Caucasian persons, and between women and men (interaction effect).
Data collection was conducted in Japan and Australia. Subjects with knee OA included 100 Japanese and 102 Australian Caucasians, and healthy subjects included 52 Japanese and 34 Australian Caucasians. Femoral and tibiofibular torsion were measured using reliable clinical techniques. Three-way analysis of variance was conducted to examine the main and interaction effects.
While there were no significant differences in femoral and tibiofibular torsion between the subjects with and without knee OA as a whole (main effect), there were significant interactions (p < 0.05). Femoral antetorsion was lower only in the female subjects with knee OA compared with their healthy counterparts (p < 0.05). Tibiofibular torsion was lower only in the Japanese subjects with knee OA compared with their healthy counterparts (p < 0.01).
There may be ethnic and sex variations in the relationship between torsion of the lower limb and knee OA; and lower tibiofibular torsion can be a characteristic in a Japanese population with the disease. Longitudinal study is warranted to examine relationships between these variables and knee OA in a population-specific manner to determine whether the observed relationships express cause or effect.
下肢扭转与膝关节骨关节炎（OA）之间的关联在不同人群中似乎并不一致。我们研究了患膝关节OA和未患膝关节OA的人群之间股骨和胫腓骨扭转是否存在差异（主效应），以及这种差异在日本人和澳大利亚白种人之间、女性和男性之间是否一致（交互效应）。
在日本和澳大利亚进行数据收集。患膝关节OA的受试者包括100名日本人及102名澳大利亚白种人，健康受试者包括52名日本人及34名澳大利亚白种人。使用可靠的临床技术测量股骨和胫腓骨扭转。进行三因素方差分析以检验主效应和交互效应。
总体而言，患膝关节OA和未患膝关节OA的受试者之间股骨和胫腓骨扭转无显著差异（主效应），但存在显著的交互作用（p<0.05）。与健康女性相比，仅患膝关节OA的女性受试者股骨前倾角较低（p<0.05）。与健康的日本受试者相比，仅患膝关节OA的日本受试者胫腓骨扭转较低（p<0.01）。
下肢扭转与膝关节OA之间的关系可能存在种族和性别差异；胫腓骨扭转较低可能是日本患该疾病人群的一个特征。有必要进行纵向研究，以特定人群的方式研究这些变量与膝关节OA之间的关系，以确定观察到的关系是因果关系还是其他关系。
