Sensitivity and Specificity in Cancer Screening
The sensitivity and specificity of cancer screening are important considerations.
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Sensitivity and specificity in cancer screening are important considerations.
A cancer screening test is important for anyone because it allows doctors to look for cancer early on, before the patient experiences any symptoms. When cancer cells are identified, patients can be treated and cured sooner rather than later. A cancer screening may be recommended by a healthcare provider based on a patient’s family health history or age, for example. The recommendation of a screening test, on the other hand, does not imply that one has cancer cells; rather, it identifies abnormal or cancerous cells earlier in the process, before they progress and threaten one’s life. An individual’s healthcare provider can recommend one or more types of screening for him or her to undergo. There are several types of physical examinations, including a breast examination, where the healthcare provider can examine various organs of the patient, such as the breast, to see if there are any signs of disease such as lumps.
Another type of screening that is commonly used is laboratory examination, in which the tissues, blood, and urine of the patients are screened for signs and symptoms of the illness. The final type of cancer screening is imaging pictures, which provide a clear picture of the patient’s internal organs of interest and can be used to detect cancer. In order to determine how accurate a screening test can be on the patient’s boy, the terms sensitivity and specificity are often used in conjunction. (See “GRAIL’S New Cancer Screening Test Shows High Sensitivity and Specificity,” page 4 for more information.) Specificity is the percentage of true positives that determines how likely a patient is to have cancer disease. If the sensitivity is closer to 100 percent, the positive results indicate that the patients have cancer, and the negative results indicate that they do not.
However, specificity is defined as the true negative rate, which indicates that the patients are unlikely to be suffering from a cancer-related illness. The closer the specificity is to 100 percent, the more likely it is that the patient will be cancer-free following the procedure. The best screening test has high specificity and sensitivity rates, which can Help in determining whether or not a patient has cancer cells in their body.
References
GRAIL’s New Cancer Screening Test Shows High Sensitivity and Specificity. (2019). Clinical OMICs, 6(6), 4-4. doi:10.1089/clinomi.06.06.03
