Reliability of Ultrasound Tissue Characterization for Quantifing Integrity of Achilles Tendon and Patellar Tendon in People without Tendinopathy / 中国康复理论与实践

ABSTRACT

@#Objective To investigate the reliability of ultrasound tissue characterization (UTC) for quantifing the integrity of achilles ten-don and patellar tendon in subjects without tendinopathy. Methods From August, 2016 to April, 2017, testers A and B quantified integrity of achilles tendon and patellar tendon of dominant legs from 43 subjects without tendinopathy by UTC in random order respectively. Tester B quantified integrity of patellar tendon of dominant legs from other 22 subjects without tendinopathy by the same way, and repeated the mea-surements the next day. Interclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and the minimum detectable different (MDD) were calculated. Results The ICC of inter-rater reliability of achilles tendon assessment was 0.492 to 0.735, MDD was 0.3%to 3.0%. The ICC of inter-rater reliability of patellar tendon assessment was 0.383 to 0.678, MDD was 0.3%to 4.4%. The ICC of intra-rater reliability of patellar tendon assessment was 0.525~0.760, MDD was 0.6%to 5.3%. Conclusion The test-retest reliability of UTC for the quantification of integrity structure of achilles tendon and patellar tendon is satisfactory with little error, the inter-rater reliability need to be improved. which is a accurate and feasible tool to quantify tendon by the same tester.