What makes a good diagnostic test? (April 6, 2007). Category: Diagnostic testing

I've been invited to give a talk at the annual meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. The tentative title of the talk is "What makes a good diagnostic test?" It will be part of a plenary session and I'll be followed by two speakers debating the merits of two particular diagnostic tests. I don't have a lot of details at this time, but as I develop my talk, I'll put details here on this weblog.

Some of the points I want to highlight:

• Review definitions and explain the acronyms SnNOut and SpPIn.
• Five phases for the development of a medical test.
• Likelihood ratios and the likelihood ratio slide rule.

I have not elaborated on the five phases of a medical test on these web pages yet, but the details can be found in chapter 8 of the excellent book:

• The Statistical Evaluation of Medical Tests for Classification and Prediction. Margaret Sullivan Pepe (2003) Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. [BookFinder4U link]

This webpage was written by Steve Simon and was last modified on 07/08/2008.