NETWORK META-ANALYSIS OF DIAGNOSTIC TEST ACCURACY STUDIES ALLOWING FOR MULTIPLE TESTS AT MULTIPLE THRESHOLDS FOR HEALTHCARE POLICY AND DECISION MAKING
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Objectives\nNetwork meta-analyses have extensively been used to compare the effectiveness of multiple interventions for healthcare policy and decision-making. Methods for evaluating the performance of multiple diagnostic tests are less established. In a decision-making context, we are often interested in comparing and ranking the performance of multiple diagnostic tests, at varying levels of test thresholds. The aim of this research was to develop a network meta-analysis framework for evaluating multiple diagnostic tests, at varying test thresholds in one simultaneous analysis.\n\nMethods\nMotivated by an example of cognitive impairment diagnosis following stroke, we synthesized data from 13 studies assessing the efficiency of two diagnostic tests: Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), at two test thresholds: MMSE <25/30 and <27/30, and MoCA <22/30 and <26/30. Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods, we fitted a bivariate network meta-analysis model, accounting for the correlations between multiple test accuracy measures from the same study, and incorporating constraints on increasing test thresholds assuming that higher test thresholds had an increased sensitivity but decreased specificity.\n\nResults\nWe developed and successfully fitted a model comparing multiple tests/threshold combinations while imposing threshold constraints. Applying constraints on increasing test thresholds reduced the within-study variability and increased the precision in estimates of sensitivity and specificity. Using this model, we found that MoCA at threshold <26/30 appeared to have the best true positive rate (estimated sensitivity: 0.98; 95% credible interval (CrI): 0.94,0.99), whilst MMSE at threshold <25/30 appeared to have the best true negative rate (estimated specificity: 0.84, 95%CrI: 0.79,0.88).\n\nConclusions\nIn a health technology assessment setting, there is an increasing need to compare the efficiency of multiple diagnostics tests. The combined analysis of multiple tests at multiple thresholds allowed for more rigorous comparisons between competing diagnostics tests for decision-making.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.129 | 0.250 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.009 | 0.042 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.010 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".