A clinico-radiological study of diagnostic accuracy of special clinical tests in diagnosing compressive myelopathy in patients of early cervical spondylitis symptoms along with its radiological correlation

Abstract

Background. Cervical spine myelopathy occur due to compression of the spinal cord is present is quite common with a prevalence of around 90. Diagnosis of in the early stages of the condition, the patient may be symptomatic as neck pain, myelopathy or radiculopathy signs clinical examination findings, correlated by MRI findings. Aims & Objectives. To study the clinic-radiological correlation between these clinical signs and radiological imaging in patients with early cervical spondylotic symptoms. Methods and measures. A minimum of 100 cases shall be considered in this study. All the patients of either sex above the age of 12 years with early cervical spondylotic symptoms of SJMCH during the study period will be considered in this study Thorough clinical history including past medical, treatment and personal history is taken. The following clinical signs are assessed in them: clonus, Hoffman’s, Trömner, Wartenberg's sign, Deep tendon reflexes, Plantar reflexes The results of these tests are tabulated. MRI cervical spine is performed and cervical myelopathy is graded. MRI findings are correlated with the clinical signs and thus sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of each of these tests is calculated. Results. Four clinical diagnostic tests were found to have been quite reliable. None of the tests was self-diagnostic. Among various diagnostic tests Babinski, clonus sign has the highest specificity but low sensitivity. Conclusion. This study denotes that 6 tests used to diagnose myelopathy are interdependent, none is fully diagnostic.