Radiation-free measurement tools to evaluate sagittal parameters in AIS patients: a reliability and validity study.

Tabard-Fougère A; Bonnefoy-Mazure A; Dhouib A; Valaikaite R; Armand S; Dayer R

doi:10.1007/s00586-018-05875-1

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Journal article

Radiation-free measurement tools to evaluate sagittal parameters in AIS patients: a reliability and validity study.

Tabard-Fougère A Willy Taillard Laboratory of Kinesiology, Geneva University Hospitals and Geneva University, Geneva, Switzerland. anne.tabard@hcuge.ch.
Bonnefoy-Mazure A Willy Taillard Laboratory of Kinesiology, Geneva University Hospitals and Geneva University, Geneva, Switzerland.
Dhouib A Pediatric Radiology Unit, Department of Radiology, University Hospital of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
Valaikaite R Service of Pediatric Orthopaedics, Department of Child and Adolescent, University Hospital of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
Armand S Willy Taillard Laboratory of Kinesiology, Geneva University Hospitals and Geneva University, Geneva, Switzerland.
Dayer R Service of Pediatric Orthopaedics, Department of Child and Adolescent, University Hospital of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.

2019-01-06

Published in:

European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society. - 2019

Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis

English PURPOSE
This study aimed to evaluate the intra-rater reliability and validity in comparison with the two-dimensional radiography (XR) of inclinometer (INCL) and rasterstereography (RAST) for assessing spinal sagittal angles of AIS patients.

METHODS
Fifty-one AIS patients (13.5 (2.0) years, girls = 32 (63%), Cobb angle = 23.0 (17.4)°) were included in this study. Three repeated measurements of thoracic kyphosis (TK) and lumbar lordosis (LL) were evaluated using the INCL and RAST by the same operator on the same day of the XR examination. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were used to evaluate the reliability of the INCL and RAST systems. Additionally, Pearson coefficients were computed between the XR and INCL systems and between the XR and RAST systems.

RESULTS
Reliability of each radiation-free system was excellent (ICC > 0.75 for INCL and RAST) for both the TK and LL parameters. The Pearson coefficients between each of the radiation-free systems and the XR were high to moderate for the TK (0.50 < RTK < 0.75 for INCL and RAST), high to moderate for the LL as measured with the RAST (0.50 < RLL < 0.75 for RAST) and low for the LL as measured with the INCL (RLL < 0.50 for INCL).

CONCLUSION
This study demonstrated that for the RAST and INCL in AIS patients, there was (1) an excellent reliability for the TK and LL, (2) a high-to-moderate validity for measuring the TK and (3) a moderate and low validity for measuring the LL, respectively. These radiation-free systems could be used for the clinical follow-up of AIS patients for the evaluation of the TK. These slides can be retrieved under Electronic Supplementary Material.

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