Hindawi Publishing Corporation Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Volume 2012, Article ID 604842, 8 pages doi:10.1155/2012/604842 Research Article A Study on the Reliability of Sasang Constitutional Body Trunk Measurement Eunsu Jang,1 Jong Yeol Kim,1 Haejung Lee,1 Honggie Kim,2 Younghwa Baek,1 and Siwoo Lee1 1 Department of Sasang Constitutional Medicine, Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine, Daejeon 305811, Republic of Korea 2 Department of Information and Statistics, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, Republic of Korea Correspondence should be addressed to Jong Yeol Kim, ssmed@kiom.re.kr Received 12 April 2011; Accepted 20 June 2011 Academic Editor: J. Beuth Copyright © 2012 Eunsu Jang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objective. Body trunk measurement for human plays an important diagnostic role not only in conventional medicine but also in Sasang constitutional medicine (SCM). The Sasang constitutional body trunk measurement (SCBTM) consists of the 5- widths and the 8-circumferences which are standard locations currently employed in the SCM society. This study suggests to what extent a comprehensive training can improve the reliability of the SCBTM. Methods. We recruited 10 male subjects and 5 male observers with no experience of anthropometric measurement. We conducted measurements twice before and after a comprehensive training. Relative technical error of measurement (%TEMs) was produced to assess intra and inter observer reliabilities. Results. Post-training intra-observer %TEMs of the SCBTM were 0.27% to 1.85% reduced from 0.27% to 6.26% in pre-training, respectively. Post-training inter-observer %TEMs of those were 0.56% to 1.66% reduced from 1.00% to 9.60% in pre-training, respectively. Post-training % total TEMs which represent the whole reliability were 0.68% to 2.18% reduced from maximum value of 10.18%. Conclusion. A comprehensive training makes the SCBTM more reliable, hence giving a suﬃciently conﬁdent diagnostic tool. It is strongly recommended to give a comprehensive training in advance to take the SCBTM. 1. Introduction In Western society, scientiﬁc interest has been focused on the body trunk measurement in association with disease. Body mass index (BMI) has drawn popularity as a predictor of the metabolic disease [1] and people with larger waist cir- cumference (WC) are prone to this disease even when the BMI is not high [2]. Recently, waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) was found to have association with the colon cancer as well as to be a risk factor for heart disease [3, 4]. Second and fourth dig- ital length ratio (2D : 4D) is known to have association with the attention-deﬁcit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or car- diovascular diseases such as myocardial infarction [5, 6]. Like these, ratios between speciﬁc parts of the body are an important index of disease prediction. In traditional Korean medicine, individual’s constitu- tional type is regarded as being related to body shape, psy- chological status, physiological function, and susceptibility to diseases [7, 8]. Some research reported that physique char- acteristics and disease prevalence are diﬀerent from one constitution to another [9]. Especially regarding body shape, digestive system is hypoactive in individuals with small chest, excretion and sexual function are weak if one’s hip area is small, and lung hypofunction is related with big waist cir- cumference [10, 11]. Clinically, the same disease may be treated diﬀerently according to patient’s constitution and dif- ferent diseases are sometimes treated with the same prescrip- tion. Above all, the Sasang constitutional medicine (SCM) specialists focus on determining patient’s constitution cor- rectly [12]. To determine individual’s constitution, they examine temperament, characteristics of face, voice, body shape, physiological and pathological syndromes, and disease char- acteristics. Among these factors, the Sasang constitutional body trunk measurement (SCBTM) which consists of the 5- widths and the 8 circumferences plays a pivotal role in deter- mining the constitution. The SCBTM is the standard location currently employed in the Korean SCM society [13, 14]. Thus, the correct measurement is very important in order to be a suﬃciently conﬁdent diagnostic tool.