Introduction: n the previous two parts of educational manuscript series in Emergency, we explained some screening characteristics of diagnostic tests including accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values (1, 2). In the 3rd part we aimed to explain positive and negative likelihood ratio (LR) as one of the most reliable performance measures of a diagnostic test...

BACKGROUND In populations where the prevalence of infection with Plasmodium parasites is high, blood tests that identify Plasmodium parasites in patients with fever may lead to false positive diagnosis of malaria-disease. We characterised the diminishing value of the parasite detection test as a function of the prevalence of infection. METHODS We computed the ability of the parasite detection...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate transvaginal and transabdominal ultrasound scanning, with or without Doppler, as a diagnostic test for the accurate diagnosis of pelvic endometriosis. METHODS The MEDLINE (1966-2001) and EMBASE (1980-2001) databases were searched for relevant studies, published in English. Only studies fulfilling predefined criteria were selected. An assessment of quality was made for ea...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to evaluate the sensitivity, specificity, and likelihood ratio of standard diagnostic parameters C/D, NFI, and MD and their applicability in diagnostics of primary open-angle glaucoma. MATERIAL AND METHODS This study included 194 subjects (371 eyes), ages 30 to 65 years old, who underwent full ophthalmologic examination and HRT, GDx, and FDT examinations. ...

OBJECTIVES To assess the likelihood ratios of diagnostic strategies for pulmonary embolism and to determine their clinical application according to pretest probability. DATA SOURCES Medline, Embase, and Pascal Biomed and manual search for articles published from January 1990 to September 2003. STUDY SELECTION Studies that evaluated diagnostic tests for confirmation or exclusion of pulmonary...

introduction: stroke is recognized as the third cause of mortality after cardiovascular and cancer diseases, so that lead to death of about 5 million people, annually. there are several scales to early prediction of at risk patients and decreasing the rate of mortality by transferring them to the stroke center. in the present study, the accuracy of cincinnati pre-hospital stroke scale was asses...

background and objective: this study was undertaken to assess the ability of standard urinalysis (ua) and hemocytometer white blood cell (wbc) counts for the diagnosis of urinary tract infection (uti) in patients with urinary symptoms. materials and methods: a total of 600 patients with symptoms of urinary tract infection were enrolled in this prospective study. standard ua, hemocytometer wbc c...

aim and background: schizophrenia is a chronic psychiatric disorder. the positive and negative symptoms are not only important in the prognosis of the disease but also affect the quality of life among the patients. therefore, the present survey aimed to determine the relationship between positive and negative symptoms and quality of life among schizophrenic patients in sina hospital in juneqan....