Reliability and validity of the Upper Limb Functional Test (ULIFT) for women after breast cancer surgery

Purpose To evaluate the reliability and convergent validity of the Upper Limb Functional Test (ULIFT) in women after breast cancer surgery. Materials and methods A cross-sectional study with 25 women (mean age 50 +/- 7.3 years) with breast cancer submitted to a surgery intervention within a minimum period of three years. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were calculated to assess the test-retest reliability. A Bland-Altman plot examined the agreement between the times to complete two tests. Validity was established by correlating the ULIFT and DASH total score. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to determine the cut-off point for ULIFT in order to discriminate patients with some level of upper limb dysfunction. Results The ULIFT showed high reproducibility (ICC = 0.89; p < 0.001), learning effect of 7.21%, and a moderate correlation with the DASH total score (r = 0.536; R (2) = 0.28; p = 0.006). The standard error of measurement was 6.9 s and the smallest real difference was 19.1 s. The ROC curve indicated a cut-off point of 109.2 s (sensitivity = 68.7%; specificity = 77.8%; area under ROC curve = 0.77). Conclusions The ULIFT could be a valid and reliable test to assess upper limb functionality in patients submitted to breast cancer surgery.