ArticleEuropean spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society2026
Diagnostic accuracy of various methods for measuring interspinous widening in thoracolumbar posterior ligamentous complex injury shown on MRI.
Article in European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
STUDY
designretrospective single-center study. PURPOSE: To compare the accuracy of various methods to measure interspinous widening (ISW) on computed tomography (CT) in detecting posterior ligamentous complex (PLC) injuries on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for thoracolumbar fractures (TLFs). OVERVIEW OF LITERATURE: ISW showed varying accuracy in detecting PLC injury on MRI due to the lack of standardized methods of measurement.
methodsWe retrospectively reviewed data of 215 consecutive patients with acute TLFs (T1-L2). Three reviewers evaluated MRI and CT images. We measured four ISW parameters: (1) supraspinous distance (SSD): distance between the most posterior aspect of the two spinous processes; (2) midspinous distance (MSD): between the midpoints of the spinous processes; (3) interlaminar distance (ILD): between the most anterior aspect of lamina; and (4) interspinous angle (ISA): the angle between the two spinous processes. For SSD, MSD, and ILD, four different measurements were calculated according to the reference, either the average of upper and lower adjacent levels or whether a ratio or absolute value was used. We compared the diagnostic accuracy of various methods of ISW measurement in detecting black stripe discontinuity on MRI using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and interobserver reliability using interclass correlation (ICC).
resultsAll ISW methods showed low accuracy as denoted by AUC < 0.70 (range 0.51-0.65). At the optimum threshold, there was a trend toward higher specificity and lower sensitivity. The ICC was poor for 2 measurements, moderate for 5 measurements, and good for 5 measurements.
conclusionsThis study demonstrates the limited accuracy of ISW methods in detecting PLC injury on MRI. However, ILD showed a trend toward better accuracy; there was no statistically significant difference between all methods. Therefore, ISW, or the lack thereof, especially when isolated, should be interpreted with caution as an indicator for PLC injury.
Indexed as
Identifiers
42432333What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.