Bone and soft tissue components of the leg in infants with protein calorie malnutrition.

The measurements of muscle, fat and cortical thickness were made on leg radiographs of 40 kwashiorkhor infants and were compared with those of 32 normal infants. There is a significant decrease in muscle cylinder ratio, an index of the contribution of muscle to calf thickness in kwashiorkhor. The loss of bone cortex in kwashiorkhor is due mainly to failure of appositional growth. The muscle cylinder ratio in normal Nigerian infants is much higher than has been reported amongst Caucasians.