Professional experience and reliability of cervical vertebral maturation staging among unfamiliar raters.

StudyJoint diseases and related surgery· Jul 2026

Professional experience and reliability of cervical vertebral maturation staging among unfamiliar raters.

Yiğit Umur Cırdı, Alp Er Tunga Bölükbaşı, Mehmet Oğuz Çolak … Kerim Sarıyılmaz

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OrthopedicsStudyQ2IF 2.8

Inter-rater agreement on cervical vertebral maturation staging is only moderate overall

Professional experience and reliability of cervical vertebral maturation staging among unfamiliar raters.

Yiğit Umur Cırdı … Kerim Sarıyılmaz

Joint diseases and related surgery · Jul 2026 · Q2 in Orthopedics

Purpose

This study aims to evaluate the reliability of cervical vertebral maturation (cervical vertebral maturation) staging in determining skeletal maturity in patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (adolescent idiopathic scoliosis), focusing on the effect of professional experience among orthopedic surgeons.

Methods

Between January 2023 and January 2025, this reliability and agreement study included a total of 72 patients aged between nine and 16 years who were diagnosed with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis.

n = 72 patients

Results

raters often disagreed on cervical vertebral maturation stage, moderate agreement at best

κ 0.64 (95% CI 0.57 to 0.71)

CI excludes the null - significant

More results

Of the patients, 33 were male and 39 were female with a mean age of 13.07 ± 1.97 (range, 9 to 16) years.

Although spinal surgeons showed slightly higher intra-rater reliability overall, inter-rater reliability declined between assessments (first assessment κ = 0.61 vs. second assessment κ = 0.34).

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Conclusion · 1 of 2

The reliability of cervical vertebral maturation staging for assessing skeletal maturity in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis patients does not significantly differ across levels of orthopedic expertise.

Conclusion · 2 of 2

While cervical vertebral maturation staging has potential as a radiation-sparing method, the overall moderate agreement, particularly among physicians without prior experience, indicates that reliability is not significantly influenced by professional experience.

Professional experience and reliability of cervical vertebral maturation staging among unfamiliar raters.

Professional experience and reliability of cervical vertebral maturation staging among unfamiliar raters.

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