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. 2018 Aug 21:26:37.
doi: 10.1186/s12998-018-0207-x. eCollection 2018.

Diagnostic accuracy of diagnostic imaging for lumbar disc herniation in adults with low back pain or sciatica is unknown; a systematic review

Jung-Ha Kim  1   2 , Rogier M van Rijn  1   3 , Maurits W van Tulder  4   5 , Bart W Koes  1 , Michiel R de Boer  4 , Abida Z Ginai  6 , Raymond W G J Ostelo  4   5 , Danielle A M W van der Windt  7 , Arianne P Verhagen  3   8
Affiliations

Diagnostic accuracy of diagnostic imaging for lumbar disc herniation in adults with low back pain or sciatica is unknown; a systematic review

Jung-Ha Kim et al. Chiropr Man Therap. .

Abstract

Main text: We aim to summarize the available evidence on the diagnostic accuracy of imaging (index test) compared to surgery (reference test) for identifying lumbar disc herniation (LDH) in adult patients.For this systematic review we searched MEDLINE, EMBASE and CINAHL (June 2017) for studies that assessed the diagnostic accuracy of imaging for LDH in adult patients with low back pain and surgery as the reference standard. Two review authors independently selected studies, extracted data and assessed risk of bias. We calculated summary estimates of sensitivity and specificity using bivariate analysis, generated linked ROC plots in case of direct comparison of diagnostic imaging tests and assessed the quality of evidence using the GRADE-approach.We found 14 studies, all but one done before 1995, including 940 patients. Nine studies investigated Computed Tomography (CT), eight myelography and six Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). The prior probability of LDH varied from 48.6 to 98.7%. The summary estimates for MRI and myelography were comparable with CT (sensitivity: 81.3% (95%CI 72.3-87.7%) and specificity: 77.1% (95%CI 61.9-87.5%)). The quality of evidence was moderate to very low.

Conclusions: The diagnostic accuracy of CT, myelography and MRI of today is unknown, as we found no studies evaluating today's more advanced imaging techniques. Concerning the older techniques we found moderate diagnostic accuracy for all CT, myelography and MRI, indicating a large proportion of false positives and negatives.

Keywords: Diagnostic accuracy; Diagnostic imaging; Low back pain; Lumbar disc herniation; Systematic review.

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Conflict of interest statement

Not applicable.Not applicable.The authors declare that they have no competing interest.Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flow chart of selected articles
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Assessment of risk of bias for each included study
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Forest plot of the diagnostic accuracy of CT in the identification of lumbar disc herniation
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Summary ROC plots of sensitivity and specificity of all studies
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Forest plot of the diagnostic accuracy of myelography
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Forest plot of the diagnostic accuracy of MRI
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Summary ROC plots of CT versus myelography
Fig. 8
Fig. 8
Summary ROC plots of CT versus MRI
Fig. 9
Fig. 9
Summary ROC plots of myelography versus MRI
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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