Epidemiological study of idiopathic scoliosis in a school-age population in Martinique, FWI - abstract

An island-wide screening for scoliosis was carried out on all school-age children in Martinique from October 1990 to November 1991. The school population comprised 6,645 children, of whom 6,222 (93.6 percent) participated in the study. Screening was essentially based on clinical examination. The average age was twelve years, and 5,046 (81 percent) children were normal. The remaining 626 (19 percent) children were referred for X-rays and 94 cases of scoliosis (>10o according to the Cobb technique) were diagnosed. Fifty-four of the 94 cases were already known, so screening had uncovered 40 new cases. Based on this survey, the prevalence rate for scoliosis in Martinique was 1.4 percent which is similar to that found in Sweden (1.9 percent and Jerusalem (1.5 ) (AU)