Reporting of precision of estimates for diagnostic accuracy: a review

Diagnostic accuracy is usually characterised by the sensitivity and specificity of a test, and these indices are most commonly presented when evaluations of diagnostic tests are reported. It is important to emphasise that, as in other empirical studies, specific values of diagnostic accuracy are merely estimates. Therefore, when evaluations of diagnostic accuracy are reported the precision of the sensitivity and specificity estimates or likelihood ratios should be stated.1–3 If sensitivity and specificity estimates are reported without a measure of precision, clinicians cannot know the range within which the true values of the indices are likely to lie. Confidence intervals are widely used in medical literature, and journals usually require confidence intervals to be specified for other descriptive estimates and for epidemiological or experimental analytical comparisons. Journals seem less vigilant, however, for evaluations of diagnostic accuracy. For example, a recent review of compliance with methodological standards in diagnostic test research …