Novel method for evaluation of frontal plane knee alignment using bony prominences in patients with osteoarthritis.
Tadasuke Ohnishi, Mitsumasa Hida, Takayuki Nagasaki and 1 others
PMID 30214119WHAT IT FOUND
A photo-based knee alignment check using markers on bony points matched full-leg X-ray angles closely in people with knee osteoarthritis, and two non-medical examiners could repeat it reliably.
Key findings
01The marker-photo method agreed almost perfectly with the full-leg X-ray mechanical axis and full-length anatomical axis (0.94 and 0.90).
02The same method agreed moderately with the short-view anatomical axis (0.55).
03Two non-medical examiners repeated the marker-photo measurements with intra-rater values of 0.81 and 0.88 and an inter-rater value of 0.81.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The osteoarthritis sample was small, with 21 individuals and 39 limbs. All participants with knee osteoarthritis were female, and none had grade 1 osteoarthritis. Reliability was tested in seven male patients without lower-limb deformity, not in the knee osteoarthritis group. The study reports agreement with X-ray angles and measurement repeatability. It reports no patient outcomes. The authors state that landmark standardization and software development are future work.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the marker-photo method can diagnose knee osteoarthritis or predict progression. The study only compared angles with full-leg radiographs in 21 patients, and reliability was tested in seven male patients without deformity.