Target practice: choosing target conditions for test accuracy studies that are relevant to clinical practice.

The article presents a study which explores the importance of identifying the accuracy of diagnostic tests in clinical studies. It states that diagnostic test accuracy studies evaluates the presence or absence of a disease which is expressed as test sensitivity and specificity. According to the authors, a clinically relevant disease must be used as a target condition for test accuracy studies. It is inferred that the definition of a disease as the target condition must be based on evidence from prognostic studies. INSET: Example of interpretation of test sensitivity and specificity....