All 2,700 school pupils on the island. Pupils were aged 8-16 years. During a mass screening program for lung disease, all students were subjected to low-dose long chest radiographs. At the same time, all were examined with the Adam's forward-bending test. The remaining subjects were re-evaluated by postal questionnaire and examined clinically if that was deemed necessary.
Negative tests are usually true negatives.
Commentary Whether or not school children should be screened for scoliosis has been debated for decades. Unfortunately, the debate has been based on opinion and anecdote, rather than high quality evidence. No such trial has been done to evaluate scoliosis screening. The paper by Karachalios and colleagues provides data relevant to both these issues. This enabled the investigators to calculate the sensitivity and specificity of several screening tests for scoliosis.