A Systematic Review of the Reliability and Validity of Ultrasonography to Measure the Thickness of Muscles in Patients With Idiopathic Scoliosis

Ultrasonography can be a suitable tool for measuring the muscle thickness of people with scoliosis. In the present study, the reliability and validity of ultrasonography for measuring the muscle thickness of people with idiopathic scoliosis are investigated.

 The method of this study was a systematic review. Based on this, a search was conducted in scientific databases of SID, Science Direct, Medline, Scopus, ISI and PubMed on articles examining ultrasonography’s reliability and validity for measuring muscle thickness in people with idiopathic scoliosis. The search keywords were “Reliability and Validity of Ultrasonography+Validity of Ultrasonography+ Reliability of Ultrasonography+Adolescence Idiopathic Scoliosis+Cross-section Muscles+Muscles.” Finally, the articles were entered into Endnote. In the selected studies, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of the reliability and validity of ultrasonography for measuring the thickness of all muscles of people with idiopathic scoliosis were investigated. 

 After reviewing the articles based on the inclusion criteria, 17 articles with 792 samples were selected. The methodological quality of the studied articles was confirmed with a modified criterion taken from Downs and Black (1989). As the findings show, the accepted criteria or level of reliability and validity and corresponding ICC threshold values could be found in most studies but were somewhat heterogeneous. Confidence intervals (CI) (typically 95%) have been reported along with the ICC in all studies.

 According to the results, ultrasonography is a valid and reliable imaging method for evaluating the thickness of the muscles of people with idiopathic scoliosis.