057 - Decision limits and diagnostic algorithms
Autor(s): F. Carle
Issue: RIMeL - IJLaM, Vol. 2, N. 1, 2006 (MAF Servizi srl ed.)
Page(s): 57-61
Laboratory tests are a valuable source of information for the physician both within the diagnostic process and in monitoring disease evolution. The information is generated through an evidence-based process of logical scientific reasoning, that starting from the laboratory data confers on the test result a specific meaning within the diagnostic or prognostic protocol, in the framework of which the test has been applied. Some decisional tools, like the values of the diagnostic tests that identify or exclude the disease and the algorithms that describe and analyse the series of actions that lead to the diagnosis, are applied in this logical scientific process. Defining these tools can be complex. This work reports some methodological reflections about the definition and application of the decision limits and the construction of the diagnostic algorithms within the logical scientific process that from the laboratory data lead to the clinical decision.