Jenny Alexanders, Anna Anderson, Sarah Henderson and Ulf Clausen
Background: The Thessaly test is a relatively recently developed meniscal test; therefore research compared to other meniscal tests is somewhat limited. In addition, a systematic review comparing the Thessaly’s test with a long standing test such as the McMurray test has not been previously conducted.
Objective: To systematically identify and appraise all empirical studies comparing the diagnostic accuracy of the Thessaly test and McMurray test.
Procedure: Eligible studies were identified through a rigorous search of ScienceDirect, CINAHL Plus, Pubmed, PEDro, EMBASE and Cochrane Library from January 2004 until August 2014. Full English reports of studies investigating the accuracy of the Thessaly test and McMurray test. Quality Assessment of Studies of Diagnostic Accuracy (QUADAS) scores were completed on each selected article.
Results: The Thessaly test reported to have higher diagnostic accuracy values (61-96%) compared to the McMurray test (56- 84%). Although McMurray test showed to have higher sensitivity in the detection of lateral meniscal tears, the Thessaly reported to more sensitive for medial and higher specificity values for both medial and lateral tears.
Limitations: All the included studies have considerable limitations related to inclusion and exclusion criteria and recording of test outcomes.
Conclusion: Higher strength of evidence studies are warranted to ensure a more robust data collection of information in addition to further investigate the diagnostic accuracy of such tests.
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