Meta-analysis for diagnostic tests

Excerpt

Meta-analysis is a statistical method for pooling and analyzing the results from multiple studies.1 A typical meta-analysis will focus on a single outcome measure, such as a treatment effect or rate of an adverse event. However, applying meta-analysis to studies of diagnostic test’s accuracy is not straightforward. The accuracy of a diagnostic test is most often summarized with two outcomes, sensitivity and specificity, which cannot be expected to be independent and therefore must be analyzed together.2 Thus, meta-analytic methods specific to diagnostic tests are needed. The paper by Lee et al., which reports the results of a meta-analysis of F-18 FDG PET for detection of disease activity, published in this issue demonstrates the use of some of these methods.3 …