• Andrey Grin, Vladimir Krylov, Ivan Lvov, Aleksandr Talypov, Dmitriy Dzukaev, Anton Kordonskiy, Vladimir Smirnov, Vasily Karanadze, Boburmirzo Abdukhalikov, Ulugbek Khushnazarov, Irina Aleynikova, Elza Kazakova, Olesya Bogdanova, Alexander Peyker, Vitaliy Semchenko, Andrey Aksenov, Anton Borzenkov, Vladimir Gulyy, Soslan Torchinov, Sergey Bagaev, Anton Toporskiy, Andrey Nikitin, Sevak Arakelyan, Avetik Martikyan, Stanislav Oshchepkov, Dmitriy Hovrin, Aslan Kojev, and Musheg Khalatyan.
• Sklifosovsky Research Institute of Emergency Care, Moscow, Russia.
• Global Spine J. 2020 Sep 1; 10 (6): 682-691.

Study DesignMulticenter observational survey study.ObjectivesTo quantify and compare the inter- and intraobserver reliability of Allen-Fergusson (A-F), Harris, Argenson, and AOSpine (AOS) classifications for cervical spine injuries, in a multicentric survey of neurosurgeons with different levels of experience.MethodsWe used data of 64 consecutive patients. Totally, 37 surgeons (from 7 centers), were included in the study. The initial assessment was returned by 36 raters. The second assessment performed after 1.5 months included 24 raters.ResultsWe received 15 111 answers for 3840 evaluations. Raters reached a fair general agreement of the A-F scale, while the experienced group achieved κ = 0.39. While all groups showed moderate interrater reliability for primary assessment of Harris scale (κ = 0.44), the κ value for experts decreased from 0.58 to 0.49. The Argenson scale demonstrated moderate and substantial agreement among all raters (κ = 0.47 and κ = 0.55, respectively). The AOS scheme primary assessment general kappa value for all types of injuries and across all raters was 0.49, reaching substantial agreement among experts (κ = 0.62) with moderate agreement across beginner and intermediate groups (κ = 0.48 and κ = 0.44, respectively). The second assessment general agreement kappa value reached 0.56.ConclusionsWe found the highest values of interobserver agreement and reproducibility among surgeons with different levels of experience with Argenson and AOSpine classifications. The AOSpine scale additionally incorporated more detailed description of compression injuries and facet-joint fractures. Agreement levels reached for Allen-Fergusson and Harris scales were fair and moderate, respectively, indicating difficulty of their application in clinical practice, especially by junior specialists.

4 keywords...

hide…