#11367. Authors reply to the letter from Dr. Kato

July 2026publication date
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Journal’s subject area:
Health (social science);
Gerontology;
Geriatrics and Gerontology;
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Abstract:
Clinical scores should not only provide guidance regarding the best treatment options for patients. They should also facilitate communication among physicians. The interobserver agreement represents the capacity of communication between physicians who are using the score. In their letter, Kato et al. commented that the score was “developed as a tool for the orthopedic or neurosurgical specialists.” However, the original article from Kato et al. did not mention this limitation. We assumed that it would be valuable to determine if the META score allowed communication not only between spine surgeons but also between radiologists. Given that this is an imaging-based score, and considering that the radiologists’ reports generally influence the clinicians’ decision-making in patients with nontraumatic vertebral fractures, we believe the decision to evaluate radiologists’ agreement using this score was justified. Moreover, we cannot determine a priori, based on other studies in different fields, if radiologists and spine surgeons would agree using a new score. However, after our research, the medical community can say this score should only be used by spine surgeons unless otherwise proved.
Keywords:
Clinical scores; reply to Kato; radiologists; spine surgeons; communication

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