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The purpose of this study was to systematically review published studies (2000-2014) carried out on the application of ultrasonography (US) to evaluation of skeletal muscle size in children with and without neuromuscular disorders. Different databases including PubMed, Science Direct, OVID, MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, ProQuest and Google Scholar were searched. The key words used were: "children," "ultrasound," "skeletal muscles," "neuromuscular disease," "neurogenic disorders," "spina bifida," "myelomeningocele" and "reliability." Eighteen articles were found to be relevant. Eight studies applied US in combination with additional methods of assessment. Four of the 18 studies did not have a control group. Ten studies applied only US in the assessment of skeletal muscles in children with and without neuromuscular diseases. In 9 studies, there were children ranging widely in age, and in 3 studies US was used to determine normal values for skeletal muscles. According to the results of these 18 reviewed articles, US is an appropriate, reliable and highly predictive method for assessment of skeletal muscles in children.

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Rehabilitative ultrasound (US) imaging is one of the popular methods for investigating muscle morphologic characteristics and dimensions in recent years. The reliability of this method has been investigated in different studies. As studies have been performed with different designs and quality, reported values of rehabilitative US have a wide range. The objective of this study was to systematically review the literature conducted on the reliability of rehabilitative US imaging for the assessment of deep abdominal and lumbar trunk muscle dimensions. The PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Google Scholar, Science Direct, Embase, Physiotherapy Evidence, Ovid, and CINAHL databases were searched to identify original research articles conducted on the reliability of rehabilitative US imaging published from June 2007 to August 2017. The articles were qualitatively assessed; reliability data were extracted; and the methodological quality was evaluated by 2 independent reviewers. Of the 26 included studies, 16 were considered of high methodological quality. Except for 2 studies, all high-quality studies reported intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) for intra-rater reliability of 0.70 or greater. Also, ICCs reported for inter-rater reliability in high-quality studies were generally greater than 0.70. Among low-quality studies, reported ICCs ranged from 0.26 to 0.99 and 0.68 to 0.97 for intra- and inter-rater reliability, respectively. Also, the reported standard error of measurement and minimal detectable change for rehabilitative US were generally in an acceptable range. Generally, the results of the reviewed studies indicate that rehabilitative US imaging has good levels of both inter- and intra-rater reliability.