Diagnostic accuracy of physical examination tests for painful cervical radiculopathy: update of a systematic review and meta-analysis
Clinicians may use the outcome of Spurling's test and the outcome of the combination of four ULNTs to assist their clinical reasoning in diagnosing CR. However, evidence on the diagnostic accuracy of all physical tests for the diagnosis of CR is sparse, and the certainty of the evidence was very low for all outcomes of all tests, implying that new studies of high methodological value are still required to strengthen these results. Because of the small number of studies, the pooled estimates are valid only for the populations and tests studied in the specific studies included in this review.
Authors
- Michail Arvanitidis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3339-6668)
- Erik Thoomes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6375-2267)
- Barbara Kuijper
- Sarita van Geest (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2484-7508)
- Gwendolyne G. M. Scholten-Peeters
- Deborah Falla
- Danielle A van der Windt
- Marloes de Graaf
- Arianne P Verhagen
Institutions
- University of Technology Sydney (AU)
- University of Applied Sciences Leiden (NL)
- Leiden University Medical Center (NL)
- Maasstad Ziekenhuis (NL)
- Martini Ziekenhuis (NL)
- Department of Health (ZA)
- Keele University (GB)
- University of Birmingham (GB)
- Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL)
- Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences (NL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders
- Published
- 2026-02-12
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s12891-026-09551-0
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Cervical and Thoracic Myelopathy
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 39.15