Home > Medical Research Archives > Issue 149 > Reliability of evaluating Achilles tendon blood flow assessed with Doppler Ultrasound Advanced Dynamic Flow
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Published in the Medical Research Archives
Oct 2017 Issue
Reliability of evaluating Achilles tendon blood flow assessed with Doppler Ultrasound Advanced Dynamic Flow
Published on Oct 30, 2017
DOI
Abstract
Reliability of quantifying intratendinous blood flow (IBF) assessed with the high-sensitive Doppler ultrasound Advanced dynamic flow (ADF) has not been examined, yet. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate intra- and inter-observer reliability of evaluating Achilles tendon IBF assessed with ADF using established scoring systems. Three investigators evaluated IBF in 67 recordings in a test-retest design applying the Ohberg score (OS), a modified Ohberg score (MOS), and a counting score (CS). Intra-and inter-observer agreement for OS and MOS was analysed with Cohen’s Kappa and Fleiss Kappa (absolute), Kendall’s tau b and Kendall’s Coefficient of Concordance (Kendall’s W) (relative). Reliability of CS was analysed with ICC 2.1 and 3.1, standard error of measurement (SEM) and Bland-Altman analysis (bias and limits of agreement (LoA)). Intra- and inter-observer agreement (absolute/relative) ranged from 0.61-0.87/0.87-0.95 and 0.11-0.66/0.76-0.89 for OS, and from 0.81-0.87/0.92-0.95 and 0.64-0.80/0.88-0.93 for MOS, respectively. CS revealed an intra-observer ICC of 0.94-0.97, SEM 1.0-1.5, and bias -1, LoA 3-4 vessels. Inter-observer ICC for CS ranged from 0.91-0.98, SEM 1.0-1.9, and bias 0, LoA 3-5 vessels. MOS and CS showed excellent reliability and seem convenient for research and clinical practice. OS revealed decent intra- but unexpected low inter-observer reliability and therefore cannot be recommended.
Author info
Lucie Risch, Monique Wochatz, Janin Messerschmidt, Tilman Engel, Frank Mayer, Michael Cassel
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