Serodiagnostic tests for tuberculosis: a need for assessment of their operational predictive accuracy and acceptability

Abstract

There have been numerous unsuccessful attempts to develop clinically useful serodiagnostic tests for tuberculosis. Although the large number of published reports clearly show that antibody levels are significantly higher in patients, as a group, than in a control population, little consideration is given to the value of the tests in various operational situations. In this paper we review the criteria generally used to assess the usefulness of a diagnostic test and introduce two new concepts--namely, operational predictive accuracy and operational acceptability.