Understanding diagnostic tests – Part 3: Receiver operating characteristic curves

Abstract

In the previous two articles in this series on biostatistics, we examined the properties of diagnostic tests and various measures of their performance in clinical practice. These performance measures vary according to the cutoff used to distinguish the diseased and the healthy. We conclude the series on diagnostic tests by looking at receiver operating characteristic curves, a technique to assess the performance of a test across several different cutoffs, and discuss how to determine an optimum cutoff.

Keywords

• Biostatistics
• receiver operating characteristic curve
• sensitivity
• specificity