Interpreting PPV and NPV of Diagnostic Tests with Uncertain Prevalence.

ABSTRACT: Medical decision-making is often uncertain. The positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) are conditional probabilities characterizing diagnostic tests and assessing diagnostic interventions in clinical medicine and epidemiology. The PPV is the probability that a patient has a specified disease, given a positive test result for that disease. The NPV is the probability that a patient does not have the disease, given a negative test result for that disease. Both values depend on disease incidence or prevalence, which may be highly uncertain for unfamiliar diseases, epidemics, etc. Probability distributions for this uncertainty are usually unavailable. We develop a non-probabilistic method for interpreting PPV and NPV with uncertain prevalence. Uncertainty in PPV and

SUBMITTER: Ben-Haim Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11294685 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature