The Reliability of Assessing Radiographic Healing of Osteochondritis Dissecans of the Knee

Background:The reliability of assessing healing on plain radiographs has not been well-established for knee osteochondritis dissecans (OCD).Purpose:To determine the inter- and intrarater reliability of specific radiographic criteria in judging healing of femoral condyle OCD.Study Design:Cohort study (Diagnosis); Level of evidence, 3.Methods:Ten orthopedic sports surgeons rated the radiographic healing of 30 knee OCD lesions at 2 time points, a minimum of 1 month apart. First, raters compared pretreatment and 2-year follow-up radiographs on “overall healing” and on 5 subfeatures of healing, including OCD boundary, sclerosis, size, shape, and ossification using a continuous slider scale. “Overall healing” was also rated using a 7-tier ordinal scale. Raters then compared the same 30 pretreatment knee radiographs in a stepwise progression to the 2-, 4-, 7-, 12-, and 24-month follow-up radiographs on “overall healing” using a continuous slider scale. Interrater and intrarater reliability were assessed using in...