Chest expansion in healthy adolescents and patients with the seronegative enthesopathy and arthropathy syndrome or juvenile ankylosing spondylitis.

OBJECTIVE

To determine chest expansion measurements in healthy children and those with juvenile spondyloarthropathies.

METHODS

Chest expansion, as defined by the difference between maximal inspiration and maximal expiration was measured in 157 healthy adolescents (112 boys and 45 girls) aged 11 to 15 years, 20 patients with the seronegative enthesopathy and arthropathy (SEA) syndrome and 15 with juvenile ankylosing spondylitis (AS).

RESULTS

The median and mean chest expansion (+/- 2 SD) were 5.0 cm and 5.6 cm (+/- 3.52) for the whole group of healthy adolescents, 6.0 cm and 5.9 cm (+/- 3.64) for boys and 5.0 cm and 4.8 cm (+/- 2.69) for girls. The frequency distribution of the values was leptokurtic and skewed to the right and did not follow the normal pattern; nearly 90% of the measurements fell within the interval from 3 to 9 cm. Of all variables analyzed (age, height, weight, sex and health/disease status), only height correlated with chest expansion (r = 0.20, p = 0.01). Even so, the effect of all these variables explained only 13% of the total variance of the measurements. Interobserver and intraobserver intraclass correlation coefficients were moderate (0.58 and 0.67, respectively). Mean values and cumulative frequency distribution in asymptomatic and symptomatic SEA syndrome and patients with juvenile AS were similar to those from healthy adolescents.

CONCLUSION

Measuring chest expansion does not seem to be a useful method for the rare cases of early involvement of the chest joints in SEA syndrome and juvenile AS.