Disease prevalence and the index of detectability: a survey of studies of lung cancer detection by chest radiography

摘要

Abstract: A survey of 12 studies of lung cancer detection with cancer prevalence ranging from 0.9 to 476 cancers per 1000 showed that the unit-slope index of detectability, d$PRM@, decreased from a high value of 3.9 at low prevalence to 1.4 at high prevalence. A proposed explanation is that the readers are operating on an ROC curve with a slope that is less than unity approximating 0.6. On such a curve, a shift to more stringent criteria that occurs with decreasing prevalence in order to minimize false positives, would result in a increased unity- slope d$PRM@. !15