Purpose: To evaluate intra- and inter-rater agreement and reliability of seven reported disc height index (DHI) measurement methods on standing lateral X-ray of lumbar spine.
Methods: The adult patients who had standing lateral X-ray of lumbar spine were recruited. Seven methods were used to measure DHI of each lumbar intervertebral disc level. Bland and Altman Limits of Agreement (LOA) with standard difference were calculated to examine intra- and inter-rater agreements between two out of seven methods for DHI. Intra-class correlations (ICC) with 95% confidence intervals were calculated to assess intra- and inter-rater reliability.
Results: The intra-rater reliability in DHI measurements for 288 participants were ICCs from 0.807 (0.794, 0.812) to 0.922 (0.913, 0.946) by rater 1 (SS) and from 0.827 (0.802, 0.841) to 0.918 (0.806, 0.823) by rater 2 (XC). Method 2, 3, and 5 on all segmental levels had bias (95% CI does not include zero) or/and out of the acceptable cut-off proportion (>50%). A total of 609 outliers in 9174 segmental levels LOA range. Inter-rater reliability was good-to-excellent in all but method 2 (0.736 (0.712, 0.759)) and method 5 (0.634 (0.598, 0.667)). ICCs of related lines to good-to-excellent reliability methods was excellent in all but only indirect line in method 1 and 4 (ICCs lie in the range from 0.8 to 0.9).
Conclusion: Following structured protocol, intra- and inter-rater reliability was good-to-excellent for most DHI measurement methods on X-ray. However, in the presence of vertebral rotation, one should exercise caution in using complicated methods to define vertebral landmarks.
Keywords: Lumbar disc herniation, discectomy, disc height, disc height index, agreement, reliability.