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Poor reproducibility of compression elastography in the Achilles tendon: same day and consecutive day measurements
Catherine Payne1, Nick Webborn2, Peter Watt2
1Centre for Sport and Exercise Science and Medicine (SESAME), University of Brighton, Carlisle Road, Eastbourne, BN20 7SN, UK. C.E.Payne@brighton.ac.uk.
Objective:
To determine the reproducibility of compression elastography (CE) when measuring strain data, a measure of stiffness of the human Achilles tendon in vivo, over consecutive measures, consecutive days and when using different foot positions.
Materials And Methods:
Eight participants (4 males, 4 females; mean age 25.5 ± 2.51 years, range 21-30 years; height 173.6 ± 11.7 cm, range 156-189 cm) had five consecutive CE measurements taken on one day and a further five CE measures taken, one per day, at the same time of day, every day for a consecutive 5-day period. These 80 measurements were used to assess both the repeatability and reproducibility of the technique. Means, standard deviations, coefficient of variation (CV), Pearson correlation analysis (R) and intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) were calculated.
Results:
For CE data, all CVs were above 53%, R values indicated no-to-weak correlations between measures at best (range 0.01-0.25), and ICC values were all classified in the poor category (range 0.00-0.11). CVs for length and diameter measures were acceptably low indicating a high level of reliability.
Conclusions:
Given the wide variation obtained in the CE results, it was concluded that CE using this specific system has a low level of reproducibility for measuring the stiffness of the human Achilles tendon in vivo over consecutive days, consecutive measures and in different foot positions.