INTRAOBSERVER AND INTEROBSERVER RELIABILITY OF THE LENKE CLASSIFICATION AMONG SPINE SURGEONS

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objective The objective of this study was to analyze the intraobserver and interobserver reliability of the Lenke classification among spine surgeons from the city of Salvador, Bahia. Methods Preoperative imaging (front, profile and lateral inclinations) examinations of 20 patients at the Outpatient Clinic of the of Santa Izabel Hospital Orthopedic Department, Salvador, Bahia, who had been diagnosed with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, were selected to be evaluated by 15 spine surgeons two times at an interval of 30 days, for analysis of the intraobserver and interobserver reliability of the Lenke classification. The project was first submitted for ethical analysis to the Institutional Review Board of the Santa Izabel Hospital - Santa Casa de Misericórdia da Bahia / Prof. Dr. Celso Figueirôa and approved with voucher number 002650/2019. All the participants signed the Informed Consent Form (ICF). Results Analyzing the concordance using the Kappa index, interobserver reproducibilities of 0.755, 0.525 and 0.840 were obtained for the type of curve and the lumbar and sagittal modifiers, respectively, while the intraobserver reliabilities for the same parameters were 0.921, 0.370 and 0.929. Conclusion For the study population, the reliability of Lenke’s classification was moderate to almost perfect. Level of evidence III; Interobserver and intraobserver reliability.

Keywords

• Scoliosis
• Classification
• Reproducibility of results
• Observer variation