Morphometric Assessment of Spleen Dimensions and Its Correlates Among Individual Living in Arba Minch Town, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Introduction: The spleen is a vital lymphoid soft organ that demands constant attention from the clinical point of view. It is multi-dimensional organs that enlarge in all dimensions in disease conditions. The detection of the spleen by palpation on physical examination is not an approval of an enlarged spleen because an unenlarged spleen may palpable. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the Morphometry of spleen dimensions and its correlates among individuals living in Arba Minch Town by sonographic examinations.Methods and Materials: Community-based cross-sectional study was conducted in Arba Minch town from February 1 to March 30, 2020. A multi-stage systematic and simple random sampling technique was applied to select study participants. Data was entered into Epi-Data version 3.1software and exported to SPSS version 20 software for analysis.Result: A total of 708 individuals, 390 (55.1%) males and 318 (44.9 %) females were included in the current study. The mean splenic length, width, thickness and volume were 10.24 cm, 4.79 cm, 3.93 cm, and 109.34 cm³, respectively. The mean spleen length, width, thickness and volumes among males were 10.64 cm, 4.92 cm, 4.05 cm and 119.81 cm³ and among females were 9.75 cm, 4.63 cm, 3.78 cm and 96.50 cm³ respectively. Significant negative correlations were found between age and spleen dimensions. Significant positive correlations were observed between spleen dimensions and height, weight, Body Mass Index, and Body Surface area. But, the correlation between width and body mass index was non-significant (p-value > 0.05).Conclusion and Recommendations: The spleen dimensions were higher in males than females and have a significant positive correlation with height, weight, Body Mass Index and Body Surface Area except for the width. Further studies in different parts of the country have to be done to have normative data on the dimension of Spleen in Ethiopia.