A rapid diagnosis is considered important in HIV care. In 138,911 testing episodes with the Abbott Architect HIV Ag/Ab Combo assay (3,705 reactive samples), a signal-to-cutoff ratio of >151.17 had a positive predictive value of 100% and a sensitivity of 67.4% for the detection of subsequently confirmed HIV infection. We suggest that results higher than this signal-to-cutoff ratio threshold may ...

Verbal autopsy was used to determine causes of death in 239 children under the age of 5 years. The diagnosis derived from verbal autopsy was corroborated with hospital diagnosis in 39 cases. There was concurrence of diagnosis in 72% of the cases. Using the diagnosis of bronchopneumonia to validate the method, verbal autopsy was found to have a sensitivity of 71%, specificity of 92%, a positive ...

In a population-based sample, the authors examined the validity of preeclampsia and related diagnoses recorded in a mandatory Danish national hospital discharge registry and in a standardized telephone interview of women who gave birth between 1998 and 2002. Using a "gold standard" for preeclampsia defined in accordance with the guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecolo...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the positive predictive value (PPV) of group B Streptococcus (GBS) cultures at 35-37 weeks of gestation relative to GBS colonization status at delivery. METHODS Rectovaginal swabs from 221 women at labor in four Lisbon hospitals were collected for GBS screening according to the CDC guidelines. RESULTS The PPV was 24.4%. IAP was administered to 100% of prenatally GBS po...

Underreporting tuberculosis (TB) cases can compromise surveillance. We evaluated the contribution of pharmacy data in three different managed-care settings and geographic areas. Persons with more than two anti-TB medications were identified by using pharmacy databases. Active TB was confirmed by using state TB registries, medical record review, or questionnaires from prescribing physicians. We ...

BACKGROUND High rates of syphilis are found in inmates of county jails. Treatment of this infected transient population necessitated the development of a rapid protocol. GOAL To evaluate a rapid screening and treatment protocol for syphilis in a county jail. STUDY DESIGN Over a 2-year period 18,442 inmates were screened for syphilis with a nontreponemal test and record search for treatment ...

We retrospectively analyzed the performance of the Architect HIV antigen/antibody (Ag/Ab) combination assay in a tertiary health care center with a situation of low HIV prevalence. The specificity and positive predictive value (PPV) were 99.78% and 31.21%, respectively. However, the specificity and PPV could increase to 99.99% and 89.70% using an arbitrary cutoff value.

BACKGROUND Although medical school programs oriented toward postgraduate specialty training have the potential to reduce the duration and cost of medical school for US medical students, success depends on the ability of students to predict their postgraduate specialties. It is clear that first-year choices are poorly predictive, but it is not known when predictions become sufficiently reliable ...

in this study, a new sign for clinical diagnosis of acute appendicitis is introduced. the study was performed on a sample of 250 cases simply selected from the patients with acute appendicitis admitted to al-zahra hospital of isfahan. before operation, the patients were evaluated for this sign in order to assess its predictive value in diagnosis of acute appendicitis. following the intervention...