Abstract
A diagnostic support tool (ST) to identify lumbar spinal canal stenosis (LCS) was developed. The ST consists of items related to medical history, physical information, and diagnostic test. Since LCS and osteoarthritis of the hip (OAH) demonstrate similarities with regard to age group and initial symptoms, both diseases may often lead to incorrect diagnosis. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the predictive value of DST in patients with OAH. The subjects of this study consisted of 169 patients (28 men and 141 women) with OAH. The positive rate for the ST in the OAH was 33%. As a result, if this ST is applied to patients with OAH, then 33% of the OAH patients may be suspected of having LCS. This finding suggests that we should therefore include OAH in the differential diagnosis of LCS. In general, the above described ST places more emphasis on sensitivity and less on specificity. Considering that the specificity of the ST was 72%, 28% of positive patients for the ST were concluded to not have LCS. From this standpoint, the positive rate of the ST for OAH patients was thus determined to be 33%.
