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Assessment of curve progression on children with idiopathic scoliosis using ultrasound imaging method

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Abstract

Purpose

To investigate the threshold of the curve difference on ultrasound measurement relative to the previous radiographic measurements to detect curves progression in children who have idiopathic scoliosis (IS).

Methods

Two hundred children with IS (F:170, M:30; mean age: 14.6 ± 1.9) were recruited from a single center. A retrospective study on comparing the current ultrasound measurements with the previous radiographic measurements with threshold values from 3° to 8° to detect curve progression was conducted. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, accuracy (ACC), and odd ratio (OR) were calculated to determine the optimal threshold value of the curve differences between ultrasound and previous radiographic measurement.

Results

Both thresholds of 4° and 5° for curve difference from ultrasound scans presented the sensitivities ≥ 0.90 and specificities ≥ 0.85, and can reduce by 73 and 79% of radiographs on the studied subjects, respectively. Especially, for 4° threshold, the negative likelihood ratio (LR−) was only 0.08, which indicated that there is only 8% probability that the subject has progressed if the US measurement detected non-progression.

Conclusions

The ultrasound imaging method can be applied to identify curve progression in children with IS. Four degree is the preferred threshold value to detect the curve which had progressed, since it also had the lower rate of undetected progressed cases (false negatives).

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported through funding provided by Scoliosis Research Society and the Women and Children’s Health Research Institute.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

    Rui Zheng, Douglas Hedden, Marc Moreau, Sarah Southon & Edmond Lou

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, 9211-116 Street, Edmonton, AB, T6G 1H9, Canada

    Edmond Lou

  3. Alberta Health Services, Edmonton, Canada

    Doug Hill

Authors
  1. Rui Zheng
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  2. Doug Hill
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  3. Douglas Hedden
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  4. Marc Moreau
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  5. Sarah Southon
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  6. Edmond Lou
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Edmond Lou.

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None of the authors has any potential conflict of interest.

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Zheng, R., Hill, D., Hedden, D. et al. Assessment of curve progression on children with idiopathic scoliosis using ultrasound imaging method. Eur Spine J 27, 2114–2119 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00586-017-5457-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00586-017-5457-0

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