7 127 Normative Ultrasound Values for Achilles Tendon Thickness: An International Study consumption and presence of comorbidities) for the midportion and insertion region separately on both sides. Hereafter, a multiple quantile regression model was built using the covariates that significantly influenced the maximum anterior-posterior distance of the midportion and insertion region. Participants with missing data on any of the covariates that significantly influenced maximum AP-distance were omitted from the multiple regression analysis. The median (50.0th), lower (2.5th), and upper (97.5th) percentile values of the regression model’s results were extracted to present tendon thickness as median with a 95% reference interval (RI) encompassing the 50th percentile within the range of the 2.5th to 97.5th percentiles. To effectively assess the influence of each covariate on tendon thickness, the 95% confidence intervals (CI) were also extracted. This allows the estimation of the impact of each covariate on tendon thickness for both the midportion and insertional region. For the secondary objective, we aimed to include 100 AT patients. We compared the tendon thickness between AT patients and asymptomatic individuals for the midportion and insertional region using a general linear model while adjusting for the variables that significantly differed between both groups. We adhered to the CHecklist for statistical Assessment of Medical Papers (CHAMP) statement for the statistical analysis and presentation of results.27 IBM SPSS Statistics (version 28.0.1.0) were used. RESULTS A total of 684 persons were screened for eligibility and finally 500 asymptomatic participants and 100 AT patients, with complete data for the primary outcome measure of tendon thickness, were included. A flowchart and reasons for exclusions is presented in Figure 2. The main participants’ characteristics are depicted in Table 1. Among the participants, 55% were female, while 8 participants did not want to disclose their sex. Patients with AT had a median [interquartile range (IQR)] symptom duration of 108 [50260] weeks. Midportion AT was reported in 64 patients and 34 patients had insertional tendinopathy (2 patients had a combination of midportion and insertional AT). Bilateral symptoms were present in 36/100 (36%) of the AT patients.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw