Abstract
To help in the clinical diagnosis of lumbar spinal stenosis, we have developed a self-report instrument based on the clinical diagnosis support tool. Here we report the clinical validation of the unmodified tool and examine the usefulness of the new instrument. The new instrument, and also the unmodified tool were used for 201 outpatients (aged 50 years or older) with unknown diagnosis. The data obtained from the new instrument were analyzed using the tree model. The resulting sensitivity was 89.7% (compared to 97.4% for the unmodified tool), and the specificity was 70.6% (compared to 53.6% for the unmodified tool). The 201 outpatients included 116 with lumbar spinal stenosis, and 85 with no stenosis. These results suggested that both the unmodified tool and the new instrument may be useful for initial screening in clinical diagnosis of lumbar spinal stenosis and the new one is more simple and easy.
