TOWARDS A MORE STANDARDIZED ASSESSMENT OF DIAGNOSTIC TUMOR-MARKERS

The estimation of sensitivity and specificity are mainly used as summa ry measures of diagnostic power of new diagnostic tests. Unfortunately , the positive assessment outcome is often recanted, frequently becaus e only a preliminary assessment is done in a highly selected populatio n of already diagnosed patients and healthy individuals. Furthermore, diagnostic marker outcomes are dichotomised for the calculation of sen sitivity and specificity, with loss of information as a consequence. W e plead for the presentation of all relevant diagnostic information, w hich includes extensive description of the composition of the study gr oup, distributions of test results for different patient groups and th e use of the ROC curve and the area under it as the statistical summar y measure.