Comparison of IKDC and SANE Outcome Measures Following Knee Injury in Active Female Patients

BACKGROUND: Knee injury among young, active female patients remains a public health issue. Clinicians are called upon to pay greater attention to patient-oriented outcomes to evaluate the impact of these injuries. Little agreement exists on which outcome measures are best, and clinicians cite several barriers to their use. Single Assessment Numerical Evaluation (SANE) may provide meaningful outcome information while lessening the time burden associated with other patient-oriented measures. HYPOTHESIS: The SANE and International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) scores would be strongly correlated in a cohort of young active female patients with knee injuries from preinjury through 1-year follow-up and that a minimal clinically important difference (MCID) could be calculated for the SANE score. STUDY DESIGN: Observational prospective cohort. METHODS: Two hundred sixty-three subjects completed SANE and IKDC at preinjury by recall, time of injury, and 3, 6, and 12 months postinjury. Pearson correlation coefficients were used to assess the association between SANE and IKDC. Repeated-measures analysis of variance was used to determine differences in SANE and IKDC over time. MCID was calculated for SANE using IKDC MCID as an anchor. RESULTS: Moderate to strong correlations were seen between SANE and IKDC (0.65-0.83). SANE, on average, was 2.7 (95% confidence interval, 1.5-3.9; P < 0.00) units greater than IKDC over all time points. MCID for the SANE was calculated as 7 for a 6-month follow-up and 19 for a 12-month follow-up. CONCLUSION: SANE scores were moderately to strongly correlated to IKDC scores across all time points. Reported MCID values for the SANE should be utilized to measure meaningful changes over time for young, active female patients with knee injuries. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Providing clinicians with patient-oriented outcome measures that can be obtained with little clinician and patient burden may allow for greater acceptance and use of outcome measures in clinical settings.