Izzetti Rossana, Fulvio Giovanni, Nisi Marco, Gennai Stefano, Graziani Filippo
Department of Surgical, Medical and Molecular Pathology and Critical Care Medicine, University of Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy.
Unit of Dentistry and Oral Surgery, University Hospital of Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy.
J Imaging. 2022 Apr 15;8(4):111. doi: 10.3390/jimaging8040111.
Minor salivary gland ultra-high frequency ultrasonography (UHFUS) has recently been introduced for the evaluation of patients with suspected primary Sjögren’s Syndrome (pSS). At present, ultrasonographic assessment of major salivary glands is performed using the Outcome Measures in Rheumatology (OMERACT) scoring system. Previous reports have explored the possibility of applying the OMERACT scoring system to minor salivary glands UHFUS, with promising results. The aim of this study was to test the inter-reader concordance in the assignment of the OMERACT score to minor salivary gland UHFUS. The study was conducted on 170 minor salivary glands UHFUS scans of patients with suspected pSS. Three independent readers performed UHFUS image evaluation. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was employed to assess inter-reader reliability. Bland and Altman analysis was employed to test the agreement with a gold standard examiner. ICC values > 0.9 were found for scores 0 and 1, while score 2 and score 3 presented ICCs of 0.873 and 0.785, respectively. The measurements performed by the three examiners were in agreement with the gold standard examiner. According to these results, UHFUS interpretation showed good inter-observer reliability, suggesting that OMERACT score can be effectively used for the evaluation of glandular alterations, even for minor salivary glands.
小唾液腺高频超声检查（UHFUS）最近已被用于评估疑似原发性干燥综合征（pSS）的患者。目前，主要唾液腺的超声评估是使用风湿病学疗效指标（OMERACT）评分系统进行的。先前的报告探讨了将OMERACT评分系统应用于小唾液腺UHFUS的可能性，并取得了有前景的结果。本研究的目的是测试在对小唾液腺UHFUS进行OMERACT评分时阅片者之间的一致性。该研究对170例疑似pSS患者的小唾液腺UHFUS扫描进行。三位独立的阅片者进行UHFUS图像评估。采用组内相关系数（ICC）评估阅片者间的可靠性。采用Bland和Altman分析来测试与金标准检查者的一致性。发现评分为0和1时ICC值>0.9，而评分为2和3时ICC分别为0.873和0.785。三位检查者的测量结果与金标准检查者一致。根据这些结果，UHFUS解读显示出良好的观察者间可靠性，表明OMERACT评分可有效用于评估腺体改变，即使是小唾液腺。
