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Reliability of a special device for measuring the cross-sectional area of the patellar tendon by ultrasonography

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Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the intra- and inter-rater reliability and agreement between conditions with and without a special device (SD) in the evaluation of the patellar tendon (PT) cross-sectional area (CSA). Forty trained adult volunteers participated in the study. With the knee positioned at 90°, the ultrasound probe was placed in the transverse plane at 25, 50, and 75% of the PT length. Two raters and one analyzer obtained the images. We use a two-way ANOVA with a significance level of α = 0.05. No significant differences were found between raters or conditions. Intra-rater reliability ranged from moderate to good. Inter-rater reliability without the SD ranged from low to good, improving from moderate to good when the SD was used. Evaluation of the PT ends showed a lower coefficient of variation with the SD. We observed a moderate correlation at the ends and a strong correlation in the middle between conditions. The mean difference in the three positions is small (~ 0.013 cm2/ ~ 1.7%) with an upper limit of 43.2% and a lower limit of 32.5%. Therefore, we conclude that the use of the SD can be employed for evaluating the PT ends, while for the central region, it becomes optional.

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The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its supplementary materials.

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Acknowledgements

This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior-Brasil (CAPES)-Finance Code 001 and the National Council of Scientific Research (CNPq) Brazil.

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The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratório de Biomecânica, Centro de Desportos, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Campus Universitário, Trindade, Florianópolis, SC, 88040-900, Brazil

    Morgana Lunardi, Franklin Everaldo Furtado, Raphael Luiz Sakugawa, Lucas Tavares Sampaio & Fernando Diefenthaeler

  2. Laboratório de Pesquisa do Exercício, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

    Francesca Chaida Sonda

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  1. Morgana Lunardi
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  2. Franklin Everaldo Furtado
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  3. Raphael Luiz Sakugawa
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  4. Francesca Chaida Sonda
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  5. Lucas Tavares Sampaio
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  6. Fernando Diefenthaeler
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by ML, RLS, FEF, FCS and LTS. The first draft of the manuscript was written by ML and FEF and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Fernando Diefenthaeler.

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Lunardi, M., Furtado, F.E., Sakugawa, R.L. et al. Reliability of a special device for measuring the cross-sectional area of the patellar tendon by ultrasonography. J Ultrasound 26, 897–903 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40477-023-00829-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40477-023-00829-w

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