Cost of speed: A practical approach to evaluate a screening method from a Bayesian perspective

Highlight
• A new Bayesian model to evaluate a screening method for reliability and accuracy.A simple and practical approach for single lab validation.

Utilization of rapid screening method presents an investment decision of laboratory assets. Screening methods are filtering procedures implemented to enable analysis of a large volume of samples in a rapid fashion. The principle of screening includes establishment of a threshold value as a selection criteria for the follow up confirmative analysis. Selection of a quality screening method determines the optimized utilization of laboratory resources. Two mathematical models are used to evaluate a screening method by directly comparing to a gold standard reference method. The first model utilizes the traditional receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve model to evaluate the screening method. A new model is proposed to access the accuracy and reliability of the screening method based on the gold standard reference method. The two models are extremely practical for a single laboratory to evaluate the reliability of a screening method when limited resources are available.