THE DISCREPANCY IN DISCREPANT ANALYSIS

Discrepant analysis is a widely used technique that attempts to provid e estimates of sensitivity and specificity in the presence of an imper fect gold-standard. This technique has been applied by many researcher s to estimate the sensitivity and specificity of DNA-amplification tes ts for Chlamydia trachomatis such as the plasmid-based ligase chain-re action and polymerase chain-reaction tests. However, the sensitivity a nd specificity estimates obtained by discrepant analysis are upwardly biased, and this bias remains even when a perfect test is used to reso lve the discrepant results. This technique should not be adopted for e valuating the performance of a diagnostic test.