Abstract
To the Editor: Burke et al. (Oct. 13 issue)1 obtain impressive results in their study of false positive results in the U.S. Army's human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening program for service applicants. The extrapolation of these results to populations other than the specific low-risk population on which the test was based is problematic, however. Such extrapolation requires two steps. First, the test's sensitivity and specificity must be determined. Burke et al. implicitly assume that there were no false negatives, and hence that the sequence of tests had a sensitivity (the probability that a true positive specimen will test positive) of…
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 461-463 |
Number of pages | 3 |
Journal | New England Journal of Medicine |
Volume | 320 |
Issue number | 7 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 16 1989 |
Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Medicine(all)