The straight leg raise (SLR) test is the most commonly performed physical test for diagnosis of sciatica and lumbar disc hernia [10]. The SLR is ...SkiptomaincontentAdvertisementSearchallBMCarticlesSearchDownloadPDFResearcharticleOpenAccessPublished:24March2021Extendingthestraightlegraisetestforimprovedclinicalevaluationofsciatica:reliabilityofhipinternalrotationorankledorsiflexionJannePesonen ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0002-2859-31731,2,MichaelShacklock1,3,PekkaRantanen4,5,JussiMäki1,LauriKarttunen1,2,MarkkuKankaanpää6,OlaviAiraksinen1,2&MarinkoRade1,2,7,8 BMCMusculoskeletalDisordersvolume 22,Article number: 303(2021)Citethisarticle3500Accesses37AltmetricMetricsdetailsAbstractBackgroundThestraightlegraise(SLR)isthemostcommonlyappliedphysicaltestsonpatientswithsciatica,butthesensitivityandspecificityratingsfordischerniaandneuralcompressionleaveareasforimprovement.Hipinternalrotationtensionsthelumbosacralnerverootsandankledorsiflexiontensionsthesciaticnervealongitscourse.WeaddedthesemovementstotheSLR(extendedSLR = ESLR)asstructuraldifferentiatorsandtestedinter-raterreliabilityinpatientswithLBP,withandwithoutsciatica.MethodsFortysubjectswererecruitedtothestudybythestudycontroller(SC),20inthesciaticgroupandinthecontrolgroup.Twoindependentexaminers(E1&E2)performedtheESLRanddidnotcommunicatetothesubjectsotherthanneededtodeterminetheoutcomeoftheESLR.First,SLRwasperformedtraditionallyuntilfirstresponseswereevoked.Atthishipflexionangle,alocation-specificstructuraldifferentiationwasperformedtoconfirmwhethertheemergedresponseswereofneuralorigin.Cohen’sKappascore(CK)forinterraterreliabilitywascalculatedforESLRresultindetectionofsciaticpatients.Also,theexaminers’ESLRresultswerecomparedtothetraditionalSLRresults.ResultsTheinterrateragreementbetweenExaminer1andExaminer2fortheESLRwas0.85(p < 0.001,95%CI:0.71–0.99)translatingtoalmostperfectagreementasmeasuredbyCohen’sKappaWhentheESLRwascomparedtothetraditionalSLR,theoverallagreementratewas75%(30/40).KappavaluesbetweenthetraditionalSLRand