Measurement of neck shaft angle in cadaveric femora

Femoral neck-shaft angle is important to convey the information regarding the race to which they belong. Awareness of normal neck-shaft angle with respect to sex and sides is useful to surgeons to treat the patients in different cases and also to design prosthesis. Hence the present paper was undertaken to determine the neck-shaft angle of femur in humans. Principal objective is to measure the neck-shaft angle, neck length and neck width in cadaveric femora. And also to find out the correlation between neck-shaft angle and neck length, neck width. The neck-shaft angle of cadaveric femora was measured by using Martin’s dioptrograph and goniometer; other parameters by osteometric board, Vernier calipers and scale. There was no significant gender or side difference in neck-shaft angle. The combined mean values of neck-shaft angle, neck length and neck width were comparatively higher in males than in females, both in cadaveric femora and in radiographs. The mean neck-shaft angle positively correlated with neck length but not with neck width, oblique length and trochanteric oblique length in cadaveric femora.