Measures of accuracy and performance of diagnostic tests.

UNLABELLED Diagnostic tests are integral to the practice of veterinary cardiology, any other specialty, and general veterinary medicine. Developing and understanding diagnostic tests is one of the cornerstones of clinical research. This manuscript describes the diagnostic test properties including sensitivity, specificity, predictive value, likelihood ratio, receiver operating characteristic curve. METHODS Review of practical book chapters and standard statistics manuscripts. RESULTS Diagnostics such as sensitivity, specificity, predictive value, likelihood ratio, and receiver operating characteristic curve are described and illustrated. CONCLUSION Basic understanding of how diagnostic tests are developed and interpreted is essential in reviewing clinical scientific papers and understanding evidence based medicine.

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