The teaser paragraph presumably added by a sub-editor with a poorer
grasp of the concepts than the author has done the article a grave mis-
service by confusing sensitivity and PPV.
I did not find the diagrams helpful. For my money the best simple
explanation of these concepts is given in the book Clinical Chemistry
edited by Marshall. Read and understand.
Note that:
PPV is correlates with specificity and with disease prevalence.
NPV correlates with sensitivity and inversely with disease prevalence.
Good try by the author. I have tried to teach these concepts to
medical and science undergrads yearly for about 7 years using a problem
solving approach, and it is TOUGH.
Rapid Response:
Lies damned lies and sub-editors
The teaser paragraph presumably added by a sub-editor with a poorer
grasp of the concepts than the author has done the article a grave mis-
service by confusing sensitivity and PPV.
I did not find the diagrams helpful. For my money the best simple
explanation of these concepts is given in the book Clinical Chemistry
edited by Marshall. Read and understand.
Note that:
PPV is correlates with specificity and with disease prevalence.
NPV correlates with sensitivity and inversely with disease prevalence.
Good try by the author. I have tried to teach these concepts to
medical and science undergrads yearly for about 7 years using a problem
solving approach, and it is TOUGH.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests