How well do radiographic, clinical and self-reported diagnoses of knee osteoarthritis agree? Findings from the Hertfordshire cohort study.
OBJECTIVE
Epidemiological studies of knee osteoarthritis (OA) have often used a radiographic definition. However, the clinical syndrome of OA is influenced by a broad range of factors in addition to the structural changes required for radiographic OA. Hence more recently several studies have adopted a clinical or self-reported approach to OA diagnosis rather than a radiographic approach. The aim of this study was to investigate agreement between radiographic OA and the clinical and self-reported diagnoses of OA.


METHODS
Data were available for 199 men and 196 women in the Hertfordshire Cohort Study (HCS), UK. Participants completed a questionnaire detailing self-reported OA. Clinical OA was defined based on American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria. Knee radiographs were taken and graded for overall Kellgren and Lawrence (K&L) score.


RESULTS
The mean (standard deviation (SD)) age of study participants was 75.2 (2.6) years and almost identical proportions of men and women. The prevalence of knee OA differed depending on the method employed for diagnosis; 21% of the study participants self-reported knee OA, 18% of the participants had clinical knee OA and 42% of the participants had radiographic OA. Of those 72 study participants with a self-reported diagnosis of knee OA 52 (72%) had a radiographic diagnosis of knee OA, while 66% (39 out of 59) of study participants with clinical knee OA had a diagnosis of radiographic knee OA. However 58% of those participants diagnosed with radiographic OA did not have either self-reported knee OA or a diagnosis of clinical OA. Therefore in comparison with the radiographic definition of OA, both the clinical and self-report definitions had high specificity (91.5% & 91.5% respectively) and low sensitivity (24.5% and 32.7% respectively).


CONCLUSIONS
There is modest agreement between the radiographic, clinical and self-report methods of diagnosis of knee OA.
MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, SO16 6YD UK.
Camille
C
Parsons
MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, SO16 6YD UK.
Michael
M
Clynes
MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, SO16 6YD UK.
Holly
H
Syddall
MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, SO16 6YD UK.
Darshan
D
Jagannath
MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, SO16 6YD UK.
Anna
A
Litwic
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University Medical Centre, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Suzan
S
van der Pas
MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, SO16 6YD UK ; NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, University of Southampton and University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, Southampton, SO16 6YD UK ; NIHR Musculoskeletal Biomedical Research Unit, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 7LE UK.
Cyrus
C
Cooper
MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, SO16 6YD UK.
Elaine M
EM
Dennison
MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, SO16 6YD UK.
Mark H
MH
Edwards
Agreement; Definition; Epidemiology; Osteoarthritis; Radiographic