Ruling in Cervical Radiculopathy with an update cluster

Beyond Wainner: The New Gold Standard for Diagnosing Cervical Radiculopathy

For years, the 2003 Wainner Clinical Prediction Rule (CPR) has been the go-to for diagnosing cervical radiculopathy—despite never being externally validated.

A new 2026 study by Grondin et al. changes that. Not only does this research finally validate the Wainner CPR, but it also introduces a novel diagnostic test cluster that completely outperforms it.

Key Clinical Takeaways:

• The Upgraded Cluster: It utilizes a Modified shoulder abduction test (passive Bakody sign), a Spurling test positive specifically for arm pain, and ≥ 2 Upper Limb Tension Tests.

• Ironclad Ruling: If all tests are negative, cervical radiculopathy is effectively ruled out. If all are positive, it is effectively ruled in.

• 2x the Accuracy: This novel cluster correctly identifies over twice as many cases compared to the original Wainner CPR.