ORAL PRESENTATION Open Access Correlation analysis between digital photography measurement of trunk deformity and self-image perception in patients with idiopathic scoliosis Antonia Matamalas*, Joan Bago, Elisabetta DAgata, Ferran Pellise From 11th International Conference on Conservative Management of Spinal Deformities - SOSORT 2014 Annual Meeting Wiesbaden, Germany. 8-10 May 2014 Introduction Trunk deformity in idiopathic scoliosis has been fully ana- lyzed using different surface metrics but all of them are expensive and cannot be widely used. Recently it has been suggested that some measures of trunk deformity obtained in digital photography can be useful in the assessment of trunk deformity. Some asymmetry measures have been proposed but the relationship between these measures and patients’ self-image perception has not been established. Aim To assess the validity of a clinical assessment tool of the trunk deformity based on photographs as compared to self-assessed appearance questionnaires. Study design Cross-sectional study. Concurrent validity between pos- tural indexes obtained from digital photographs and self-assessed appearance questionnaires. Methods Front and back digital photographs of patients with idio- pathic scoliosis (Cobb angle >25º) were obtained. Shoulder, armpit and waist angles in addition to trunk asymmetry indices were calculated on front and back photographs with Surgimap software. All patients com- pleted SRS-22, SAQ and TAPS questionnaires. The Spearman´s rank correlation coefficient (r) was used to estimate concurrent validity between both methods. Results 80 consecutive patients (68 females), mean age 20.3 years old (range 12 to 40 years) were included. Mean Cobb angle was 45.9º (range 25.1º to 77.2º). A moderate but significant correlation was found between waist height angle and TAPS (r=-0.34) and SAQ appearance subscale (r= 0.35). SRS22 image sub- scale did not correlate with any photographic measure. Shoulder height angle and trapezium angle ratio corre- lated significantly with SRS22 Pain (r=-0-34) and SRS22 subtotal (r=-0.23). Any other correlation between body image perception instruments and other photography measurements was found. Conclusion Waist height angle measured with digital photography is moderately correlated with perceived trunk appearance. Trunk asymmetry is poorly correlated with self-assessed appearance whereas shoulder asymmetry is correlated with pain and quality of life. Published: 4 December 2014 doi:10.1186/1748-7161-9-S1-O8 Cite this article as: Matamalas et al.: Correlation analysis between digital photography measurement of trunk deformity and self-image perception in patients with idiopathic scoliosis. Scoliosis 2014 9(Suppl 1): O8. Hospital Vall Hebron, Barcelona, Spain Matamalas et al. Scoliosis 2014, 9(Suppl 1):O8 http://www.scoliosisjournal.com/supplements/9/S1/O8 © 2014 Matamalas et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ Introduction Aim Study design Methods Results Conclusion