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Tidskrift

Sammanfattning

Blood tests and other paraclinical tests are increasingly employed for diagnostic purposes, to follow treatment and inrelation to screening programs. When used for diagnostic purposes the results are usually compared to a reference interval, the 95% range obtained for individuals not suffering from known diseases. The nature of the reference interval implies that 2.5% of individuals not suffering from the disease in question will have values above as well as below the limits. For analysis used to guide treatment response it is important to take account of the uncertainty induced by the analytical process and from the biological variation. Such factors must be considered when judging whether the results present a significant change in the patient. An efficient use of biomarkers for screening purposes demands knowledge of diagnostic sensitivity and specificity. In addition, it is important to recall that compared to focused screening a broad screening will result in a higher proportion of false positive results.

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