INTEREXAMINER AND INTRAEXAMINER RELIABILITY OF NERVE-CONDUCTION MEASUREMENTS IN PATIENTS WITH DIABETIC NEUROPATHY

We determined the inter- and intraexaminer reliability of nerve conduc tion measurements in six patients with diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Each patient was examined by six electromyographers on two separate o ccasions at least 1 week apart. We obtained attributes of nerve conduc tion at each examination and analyzed the data by analysis of variance . Intraexaminer reliability was high for 11 of 12 measurements, and in terexaminer reliability was high for eight of twelve. Three of the fou r measurements that varied between examiners were either sensory or mo tor amplitudes, attributes frequently used to measure disease progress ion or to assess the result of therapeutic intervention. Our results s uggest that longitudinal nerve conduction measurements used to assess worsening or improvement over time should optimally be performed by a single examiner to minimize the degree of variability associated with different examiners.