An independent inter- and intra-observer agreement assessment of Yeom classification for bone cement leakage following vertebroplasty/kyphoplasty.

STUDY DESIGN

An inter- and intra-observer agreement study.

BACKGROUND

In recent years, vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty have been widely used in treating osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures (OVCF) though the clinical efficacy of them is still controversial. However, there are also inevitable complications, first and foremost is bone cement leakage (BCL). Yeom classification is commonly used to evaluate BCL. The objective of this study is to assess its reliability and reproducibility, and to explore its clinical application value.

METHODS

All 58 patients with BCL following vertebroplasty/kyphoplasty were involved. Six spine surgeons were selected to be evaluators as they were unaware of the identity of the patients and the treatment they received. They classified BCL according to Yeom system, we used kappa (K) to assess the inter- and intra-observer agreement. After 12 weeks, we repeated the analysis.

RESULTS

The inter-observer reliability of Yeom classification was substantial with value of 0.71 (1st assessment) and 0.73 (2nd assessment). The intra-observer reproducibility of Yeom classification was near perfect with value of 0.88.

CONCLUSION

Yeom classification system has substantial inter-observer reliability and near perfect intra-observer reproducibility in BCL following vertebroplasty/kyphoplasty, which can be widely used in clinical care as an appropriate instrument for early observation, mechanism and severity cognition, and prognosis predicting of BCL. Besides, the adding of type M (the mixed type) may improve the classification.