Clinical tests to diagnose lumbar spondylolysis and spondylolisthesis: A systematic review

Assessment and rehabilitation of chronic low back pain in baseball: part II

“…The physical examination should be focused on the location of tenderness, presence of sciatic stretch signs, neurological deficit, manoeuvres that reproduce LBP, back stiffness and ROM (Dines et al, 2012). Alqarni et al conducted a systematic review of clinical tests and their general diagnostic abilities to detect lumbar spondylolysis and spondylolisthesis (Alqarni, Schneiders, Cook, & Hendrick, 2015). Results of this review highlighted the optimal clinical test (of the 15 different clinical tests reported) for spondylolysis and spondylolisthesis was described by Collaer et al, who used palpation for the presence or absence of pain on a lumbar spinous process (Collaer, McKeough, & Boissonnault, 2006).…”

“…Fifteen other clinical tests were reviewed for diagnostic ability of spondylolisthesis by Kalpakcioglu, Altınbilek and Senel (2009). Of these tests, those that involved lumbar spinous process palpation, lateral trunk flexion-extension tasks and double-leg raising tasks to induce pain are correlated to spondylolisthesis which was later confirmed with radiological assessment (Kalpakcioglu et al, 2009)(Alqarni et al, 2015). …”

Diagnostic utility of patient history and physical examination data to detect spondylolysis and spondylolisthesis in athletes with low back pain: A systematic review

“…Higher healing rates have been seen if spondylolysis is detected early (Fujii et al, 2004, Morita et al, 1995, Saraste, 1986. A recent systematic review concluded that no clinical test possessed the diagnostic utility (the diagnostic usefulness of a test) to diagnose spondylolysis, but that the lumbar spinous palpation test demonstrated diagnostic utility for diagnosing spondylolisthesis (Alqarni et al, 2015), with specificity 87-100% and sensitivity 60-88%. The review included a general, nonathletic population in their eligibility criteria; but two of the included studies (Gregg et al, 2009, Masci et al, 2006 investigated a sporting population for spondylolysis.…”

“…The review included a general, nonathletic population in their eligibility criteria; but two of the included studies (Gregg et al, 2009, Masci et al, 2006 investigated a sporting population for spondylolysis. Clinical tests that can distinguish spondylolysis from other causes of LBP in athletes have not been identified (Alqarni et al, 2015, Kujala et al, 1999. However, patient history data are strong contributors to establishing an accurate diagnosis (Peterson et al, 1992); through clinical reasoning processes (Rushton and Lindsay, 2010), and Alqarni et al (2015) only explored physical data, searching to February 1 st 2014.…”

Evidence base and future research directions in the management of low back pain

“…Manual tests of the sacroiliac joint when use in combination were informative but none of the tests for facet joint pain were found to be informative to distinguish the source of LBP. A systematic review by Alqarni et al [18] showed that high specificity and moderate to high sensitivity for lumbar spinous process palpation test for the diagnostic test for lumbar spondylolisthesis. Another systematic review by Alqarni et al [19] showed the passive lumbar extension test may be useful in orthopaedic clinical practice to diagnose structural lumbar segmental instability.…”