{"title":"Interpreting diagnostic tests with continuous results and no gold standard: a common scenario explained using the tuberculin skin test.","authors":"Claudia C Dobler, M Hassan Murad","doi":"10.1136/ebmed-2017-110825","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Practitioners of evidence-based medicine commonly encounter diagnostic tests with continuous results and no gold standard. In contrast, the traditional critical appraisal teachings assume a binary test (2×2 table) with a gold standard. In this guide, we use the example of the tuberculin skin test to illustrate a simple approach facilitated by using stratum-specific likelihood ratios and odds of developing future patient-important events. This approach can aid practitioners in the interpretation and application of diagnostic tests to patient care.</p>","PeriodicalId":12182,"journal":{"name":"Evidence-Based Medicine","volume":" ","pages":"199-201"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2017-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1136/ebmed-2017-110825","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Evidence-Based Medicine","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1136/ebmed-2017-110825","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2017/10/22 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
Practitioners of evidence-based medicine commonly encounter diagnostic tests with continuous results and no gold standard. In contrast, the traditional critical appraisal teachings assume a binary test (2×2 table) with a gold standard. In this guide, we use the example of the tuberculin skin test to illustrate a simple approach facilitated by using stratum-specific likelihood ratios and odds of developing future patient-important events. This approach can aid practitioners in the interpretation and application of diagnostic tests to patient care.