Abstract
Study design
Retrospective study.
Objectives
To establish the inter-rater reliability in the quantitative evaluation of spinal cord damage following cervical incomplete spinal cord injury (SCI) utilizing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). MRI was used to perform manual measurements of the cranial and caudal boundaries of edema, edema length, midsagittal tissue bridge ratio, axial damage ratio, and edema volume in 10 participants with cervical incomplete SCI.
Setting
Academic university setting.
Methods
Structural MRIs of 10 participants with SCI were collected from Northwestern University’s Neuromuscular Imaging and Research Lab. All manual measures were performed using OsiriX (Pixmeo Sarl, Geneva, Switzerland). Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were used to determine inter-rater reliability across seven raters of varying experience.
Results
High-to-excellent inter-rater reliability was found for all measures. ICC values for cranial/caudal levels of involvement, edema length, midsagittal tissue bridge ratio, axial damage ratio, and edema volume were 0.99, 0.98, 0.90, 0.84, and 0.93, respectively.
Conclusions
Manual MRI measures of spinal cord damage are reliable between raters. Researchers and clinicians may confidently utilize manual MRI measures to quantify cord damage. Future research to predict functional recovery following SCI and better inform clinical management is warranted.
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Acknowledgements
The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. ACS, KAW, JME, DRO, and JCB were supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under award number R03HD094577. KAW was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse under award number T32DA035165 and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke under award number K23NS104211. JME and ACS were supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under award number R01HD079076. ACS was supported by the Regis University Research and Scholarship Council.
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Cummins, D.P., Connor, J.R., Heller, K.A. et al. Establishing the inter-rater reliability of spinal cord damage manual measurement using magnetic resonance imaging. Spinal Cord Ser Cases 5, 20 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41394-019-0164-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41394-019-0164-1
