The validity of clinical examination in adolescent spinal deformities.

retrospective study on the accuracy and reliability of two clinical tests for scoliosis in young patients.to evaluate the inter-observer reliability of three non-invasive clinical measurements: hump height (HH), axial trunk rotation (ATR), and distance of the spinous process from the plumb line (DP) in standing; to compare these results with the corresponding radiographic measurements, the Cobb angles (CA). Population: 116 patients, 78 females and 38 males; 410 examinations have been performed (144 patients with brace and 266 without).a database was created using the measurements of different clinical parameters obtained from two examiners that measured them independently and in the same conditions. The Cobb method has been used as a gold standard.our results show a very high inter-rater reliability for HH and ATR measurements. The DP shows a different inter-rater reliability for the thoracic (C7) and lumbar (L3) spine, in both cases lower than that in the frontal plane; the ICC of the thoracolumbar DP (D12) was very low. The correlation with the radiographic value was weak.