Index for rating diagnostic tests

The functional rating index.

The Functional Rating Index (FRI) (Feise and Michael Menke 2001) is a 10-item region-specific Patient Reported Outcome (PRO) measure developed by combining the Neck Disability Index (NDI) and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI). It is designed to reflect status for disorders that involve several or any spine area as a single kinetic chain. The 10 FRI items fall within four constructs – pain, sleep,...

Diagnostic tests for chancroid.

Background The identification of the causative agent of chancroid, Haemophilus ducreyi, was first reported in 1889 by August Ducrey, as a short streptobacillary rod with rounded ends, following experiments in which he autoinoculated patients’ forearms with pus from their genital ulcers. Bezancon et al subsequently inoculated the forearms of human volunteers with culture purified organisms and p...

Diagnostic tests for frailty

A common way of allowing heterogeneity between individuals in models for lifetime data is to introduce an unobservable individual random effect Z. In a proportional hazards framework, the individual’s hazard becomes zhb(t) where hb(t) is the baseline hazard. The random variable Z is often assumed to follow the Gamma or Inverse Gaussian distribution. We develop here diagnostic tests for these as...

Assessing the Validity of Diagnostic Tests

Diagnostic tests Testing for tuberculosis

Tuberculosis is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The approach to testing for tuberculosis depends on whether the aim is to diagnose active disease or latent infection. if active disease is suspected, it is important to identify the site of disease. Analysis of sputum specimens for mycobacteria should precede other tests. An infection should never be diagnosed as latent until active disease...