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Two situations with the same operating
characteristics (sensitivity and specificity) of the test, but a
different prevalence of the condition in the population. In
the first example, the prevalence is 40% in the population,
thus 400 of these 1,000
people have the condition. Using the sensitivity shows that 90% of these 400, thus 360 people are correctly
and 40 incorrectly identified as having the condition. Using
specificity information shows that 90% of 600, thus 540 are correctly
and 60 incorrectly identified as not having the condition. The
predictive value of a positive test result in this situation is 86%.
In other words, a positive test
truly identifies about 9 out of 10 cases and in the 10th the test is
wrong. In
the second example, the prevalence is much lower. Using the
same test with the same operating characteristics, a positive test is correct in only half
of the cases: the test is virtually
useless in this situation. To
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