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Sammanfattning

Ideal symptoms or signs are those that demonstrate a specifi c disease or their absence excludes it. However, there is always a probability that sick people will be diagnosed as healthy and vica versa. Thus, the ideal situation is seldom met but replaced in clinical practice by the use of an estimate of probabilities. The terms, sensitivity and specifi city, describes the eff ectiveness of a test to either diagnose diseased or healthy people, or simply ascertain whether patients with known diagnoses have been correctly identifed. Predictive value, used for examination methods, provides a probability that the patient has or has not a specifi c diagnosis. With examination methods that provide quantitative results, such as the amount of bacteria in saliva, a threshold value must be defi ned. This value not only classifi es persons as sick and healthy but also defi nes the number patients with an incorrect diagnosis.

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