Radiographic evaluation of the wrist: what does the hand surgeon want to know?

Abstract

Congenital, developmental, and acquired wrist deformities predispose patients to characteristic conditions and their associated debilities. The accurate recognition and quantitation of these conditions represent guideposts to treatment and prognosis. The authors present mensuration methods and normal ranges for the important morphologic features of carpal height, ulnar variance, radial inclination, radial length, palmar tilt, and radial shift. These measurements assume importance in the description and quantitation of many conditions. The authors review the radiographic features and diagnosis of dissociated and nondissociated carpal instability, scapholunate advanced collapse, ulnar translocation, ulnocarpal impaction, and ulnoradial impingement.