|
Sometimes the tests are sufficiently inaccurate that you have
to use a number of them to give you the best chance of making the right diagnosis. You can
either use them serially or in parallel. You use them serially in an emergency room
perhaps and will admit the patient if any one is positive since the disease is so serious
or life threatening. Or you use 2 tests in less exciting circumstances and again treat the
patient as having the disease if one or both are positive.
When you do tests in parallel you do a test, wait, and do the other. If you do this, for
whatever technical reason, always do the test with the higher specificity first, if you
can, because you will have fewer false positives to test with the second test (and will
save money). |