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It must mean that it is 90% accurate in identifying cancer. If your test was given 100 people with PC it would be 100% wrong but this test would be 90% correct.
by ShawnBird 14y ago
It must mean that it is 90% accurate in identifying cancer. If your test was given 100 people with PC it would be 100% wrong but this test would be 90% correct. That is how I am reading it anyway.
- happimess 14y agoThe problem is that you're forced to speculate. Your interpretation sounds pretty reasonable to me, but I don't know any more about it than you do. I'd rather have an unambiguous explanation.
- mistercow 14y agoBut a low false negative rate is equally unimpressive unless it is combined with a low false positive rate. If I modify my program to always say "You have pancreatic cancer", then it would have a 0% false negative rate, but it would still be a worthless test because it would have a 99.99% false positive rate. Simply knowing the false negative rate is not particularly helpful.
- shasta 14y agoSounds like you want my "You do have pancreatic cancer" program, which is 100% accurate.
- firebones 14y agoIf the prevalence of PC in the population is 1 in 10,000, then giving this test to 100,000 people would result in 10,000 cancer-free people testing positive for PC, 9 people being screened correctly, and 1 person with PC being missed. The number is meaningless without knowing the false positive rate. Rolling a D10 with 9 sides painted black and one white could also give 90% accuracy as a test too.