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Erschienen in:
04.04.2017 | Scientific Article
Poor reproducibility of compression elastography in the Achilles tendon: same day and consecutive day measurements
Erschienen in: Skeletal Radiology | Ausgabe 7/2017
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Objective
To determine the reproducibility of compression elastography (CE) when measuring strain data, a measure of stiffness of the human Achilles tendon in vivo, over consecutive measures, consecutive days and when using different foot positions.
Materials and methods
Eight participants (4 males, 4 females; mean age 25.5 ± 2.51 years, range 21–30 years; height 173.6 ± 11.7 cm, range 156–189 cm) had five consecutive CE measurements taken on one day and a further five CE measures taken, one per day, at the same time of day, every day for a consecutive 5-day period. These 80 measurements were used to assess both the repeatability and reproducibility of the technique. Means, standard deviations, coefficient of variation (CV), Pearson correlation analysis (R) and intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) were calculated.
Results
For CE data, all CVs were above 53%, R values indicated no-to-weak correlations between measures at best (range 0.01–0.25), and ICC values were all classified in the poor category (range 0.00–0.11). CVs for length and diameter measures were acceptably low indicating a high level of reliability.
Conclusions
Given the wide variation obtained in the CE results, it was concluded that CE using this specific system has a low level of reproducibility for measuring the stiffness of the human Achilles tendon in vivo over consecutive days, consecutive measures and in different foot positions.