Abstract
To facilitate the clinical diagnosis of lumbar spinal stenosis, we developed a self-report instrument based on five of the ten items in the existing clinical diagnosis support tool. The unmodified tool was administered to 280 patients consisting of 142 with lumbar disc herniation and 138 with lumbar spinal stenosis, confirmed at surgery. The resulting sensitivity was 92.0% and the specificity was 63.4%. Then the new instrument, as well as the previously available tool were used to evaluate 201 outpatients with unknown diagnosis. In these 201 outpatients, the resulting sensitivity was 95.7% (compared to 97.4% for the tool), and the specificity was 31.8% (compared to 53.6% for the tool). The 201 outpatients consisted of 116 with lumbar spinal stenosis and 85 with no stenosis. The new instrument may be useful for initial screening because it is simple and easy. Further refinements are planned to improve its usefulness.
