Correlation between clinical tibiofemoral angle and body mass index in normal Nigerian children

The tibiofemoral angle (TFA) is a reliable tool for determining lower-limb axial alignment and defining the degree of deformity in pathologic angular malalignment of the knee in children.

We clinically examined 471 normal Nigerian elementary school children whose ages ranged from three to ten years to determine the clinical tibiofemoral angle and to establish its relationship with body mass index (BMI).

We found maximum knee valgus of 7.87° at three years, decreasing to 1° at ten years. We also found significant negative correlation between the tibiofemoral angle and BMI. All children examined had weights between the 5th and 85th percentile for age and sex.

We conclude that in normal healthy-weight children, BMI does not cause an increase in tibiofemoral angle.