title: Hand surface area--do racial differences exist?
abstract: The patient's own palm is used as a template in assessing small patchy burns and is traditionally believed to be 1% of body surface area. This does alter with the patient's age, sex and BMI and there have been suggestions that it can also differ between ethnic groups. We undertook this study to see if there were any differences in the hand surface area between Caucasians, Orientals and Asians. It was done by tracing the hand outline and calculating the surface area. The study showed that there was no significant difference between the three ethnic groups in terms of hand surface area.
authors.affiliation: University Hospital of North Durham, Durham, DH1 5TW, UK. rajivemathew@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Rajive Mathew
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Jose
authors.forename: Deb Kumar
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Roy
authors.forename: Paul K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.forename: Matt
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Erdmann
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000886:Anthropometry; D044466:Asian People; D015992:Body Mass Index; D001830:Body Surface Area; D005260:Female; D006225:Hand / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D044469:Racial Groups; D044465:White People