In patients with shoulder arthritis, the ability to accurately determine glenoid morphological alterations affects the outcomes of shoulder arthroplasty surgery significantly. This study was conducted to determine whether there is a correlation between scapular and glenoid morphometric components. Existence of such a correlation may help surgeons accurately estimate glenoid bone loss during pre-operative planning.

The dimensions and geometric relationships of the scapula, scapula apophysis and glenoid were assessed using CT scan images of 37 South African and 40 Chinese cadavers. Various anatomical landmarks were marked on the 77 scapulae and a custom script was developed to perform the measurements. Intra-cohort correlation and inter-cohort differences were statistically analysed using IBM SPSS v28. The condition for statistical significance was p<0.05.

The glenoid width and height were found to be significantly (p<0.05) correlated with superior glenoid to acromion tip distance, scapula height, acromion tip to acromion angle distance, acromion width, scapula width, and coracoid width, in both the cohorts. While anterior glenoid to coracoid tip distance was found to be significantly correlated to glenoid height and width in the South African cohort, it was only significantly correlated to glenoid height in the Chinese cohort. Significant (p<0.05) inter-cohort differences were observed for coracoid height, coracoid width, glenoid width, scapula width, superior glenoid to acromion tip distance, and anterior glenoid to coracoid tip distance.

This study found correlations between the scapula apophyseal and glenoid measurements in the population groups studied. These morphometric correlations can be used to estimate the quantity of bone loss in shoulder arthroplasty patients.