Article ; Online: The relative area score for sublingual varices reliability measurement
BMC Oral Health, Vol 23, Iss 1, Pp 1-
a diagnostic study
2023 Volume 8
Abstract: Abstract Background Sublingual varices (SV) and their predictive potential for other clinical parameters is a much studied topic in oral medicine. SVs have been well studied as predictive markers for many common diseases such as arterial hypertension, ... ...
| Abstract | Abstract Background Sublingual varices (SV) and their predictive potential for other clinical parameters is a much studied topic in oral medicine. SVs have been well studied as predictive markers for many common diseases such as arterial hypertension, cardiovascular disease, smoking, type 2 diabetes mellitus and age. Despite many prevalence studies, it is still unclear how the reliability of SV inspection affects its predictive power. The aim of this study was to quantify the inspection reliability of SV. Methods In a diagnostic study, the clinical inspection of 78 patients by 23 clinicians was examined for the diagnosis of SV. Digital images of the underside of the tongue were taken from each patient. The physicians were then asked to rate them for the presence of sublingual varices (0/1) in an online inspection experiment. Statistical analysis for inter-item and inter-rater reliability was performed in a τ-equivalent measurement model with Cronbach's $$\alpha$$ α and Fleiss κ. Results The interrater reliability for sublingual varices was relatively low with κ = 0.397. The internal consistency of image findings for SV was relatively high with α≈ 0.937. This shows that although SV inspection is possible in principle, it has a low reliability R. This means that the inspection finding (0/1) of individual images often cannot be reproduced stably. Therefore, SV inspection is a difficult task of clinical investigation. The reliability R of SV inspection also limits the maximum linear correlation $${r}_{max}$$ r max of SV with an arbitrary other parameter Y. The reliability of SV inspection R = 0.847 limits the maximum correlation to $${r}_{max}$$ r max (SV, Y) = 0,920—a 100% correlation was a priori not achievable in our sample. To overcome the problem of low reliability in SV inspection, we propose the RA (relative area) score as a continuous classification system for SV, which normalises the area of visible sublingual veins to the square of the length of the tongue, providing a dimensionless measure of SV. ... |
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| Keywords | Sublingual varices ; Reliability ; Clinical inspection ; Aging ; Oral science ; Maximum correlation ; Dentistry ; RK1-715 |
| Subject code | 600 |
| Language | English |
| Publishing date | 2023-06-01T00:00:00Z |
| Publisher | BMC |
| Document type | Article ; Online |
| Database | BASE - Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (life sciences selection) |
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