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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary Imaging
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2024.1479790
This article is part of the Research Topic Monitoring and Reducing Errors in Veterinary Radiology View all articles

Reproducibility and agreement of radiographic assessment of carpal deformities in foals

Provisionally accepted
Alexandre Charles Alexandre Charles *Xavier Peeters Xavier Peeters Constance Verbrugghe Constance Verbrugghe Maxime Vandersmissen Maxime Vandersmissen Laurence Evrard Laurence Evrard Valeria Busoni Valeria Busoni
  • Medical Imaging, Clinical Department of Equids, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Pivot Point (PP) method is commonly used in the radiographic assessment of carpal deformities in young foals, since the range of deviation may influence the treatment choice.The aims of this study were to assess intra-and interobserver reproducibility of PP method and subjective radiographic evaluation without line drawing to establish the anatomical site responsible of carpal deviation in foals, and to evaluate the agreement between these 2 techniques. A total of 52 radiographs from 25 foals were included. Radiographs were assessed by 6 readers. PP and subjective evaluations revealed a strong intraobserver reproducibility for the origin of the deviation (Cramer coefficient 0,4 and 0,5 respectively; p< 0,05) while interobserver reproducibility was low (Kappa value 0,26 and 0,20 respectively; p< 0,05).Measurement of the angle of deviation using the PP method showed high intraobserver reproducibility (correlation coefficient of 0.93, p<0,05) and there was a very strong agreement between PP and subjective evaluation for establishing the origin of the deviation for all readers (Cramer coefficient 0,41; p<0,05). A higher variability of PP Angle was found in limbs with lateral bowing of the distal radius. These results suggest that evaluation by the same reader can be reliable for follow-up of foals with carpal deformities and that there is no need of drawing lines if the only required information is the origin of deviation.

    Keywords: horse, Carpus, carpal conformation, Angular limb deformity, Deviation, Radiography, Pivot point

    Received: 12 Aug 2024; Accepted: 16 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Charles, Peeters, Verbrugghe, Vandersmissen, Evrard and Busoni. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Alexandre Charles, Medical Imaging, Clinical Department of Equids, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.