ACCURATE QUANTITATIVE MEASUREMENT OF LUNATE UNCOVERING RATIO — IS GILULA'S SEMIQUANTITATIVE TEST RELIABLE?

The Gilula's test suggests the presence of ulnocarpal translation when 50% or more of the lunate lies medial to the ulnar edge of radius. The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability of this semiquantitative test as there was inconsistency between the previous publications in regarding 50% as the cutoff value for the normal lunate uncovering ratio (LUR). We utilized the Picture Archiving and Communication System to investigate radiographs of 299 normal adult wrists and emphasized defined radiographic landmarks for accurate quantitative measurement. Our mean LUR was 35%(SD8) with a range of 8 to 49%. Therefore we re-affirmed the reliability of the Gilula's test since none of our normal wrists had a LUR of 50% or greater.