Evaluating Measures of Indicators of Diagnostic Test Performance:Fundamental Meanings and Formulars

Journal of Biometrics & Biostatistics

article

Okeh UM¹  Okoro CN¹ 

[1] Department of Industrial Mathematics and Applied Statistics, Ebonyi State University Abakaliki

关键词: Diagnostic accuracy;    Sensitivity;    Specificity;    Likelihoodratio;    DOR;    AUC;    Predictive values;   

DOI  :  10.4172/2155-6180.1000132

来源: Hilaris Publisher

【 摘 要 】

Diagnostic accuracy relates to the ability of a test to discriminate between the target condition and health. Thisdiscriminative potential can be quantified by the measures of diagnostic accuracy such as sensitivity and specificity,predictive values, likelihood ratios, error rates, the area under the ROC curve, Youden’s index and diagnostic odds ratio.Different measures of diagnostic accuracy relate to the different aspects of diagnostic procedure: while some measuresare used to assess the discriminative property of the test, others are used to assess its predictive ability. Measures ofdiagnostic accuracy are not fixed indicators of a test performance, some are very sensitive to the disease prevalence,while others to the spectrum and definition of the disease. Furthermore, measures of diagnostic accuracy are extremelysensitive to the design of the study. Studies not meeting strict methodological standards usually over- or under-estimatethe indicators of test performance as well as they limit the applicability of the results of the study. STARD initiative wasa very important step toward the improvement of the quality of reporting of studies of diagnostic accuracy. STARDstatement should be included into the Instructions to authors by scientific journals and authors should be encouragedto use the checklist whenever reporting their studies on diagnostic accuracy. Such efforts could make a substantialdifference in the quality of reporting of studies of diagnostic accuracy and serve to provide the best possible evidenceto the best for the patient care. This brief review outlines some basic definitions, formulas and characteristics of themeasures of diagnostic accuracy.

【 授权许可】

Unknown