Background: Tests have false positive or false negative results, which, if not properly accounted for, may provide misleading apparent prevalence estimates based on the observed rate of positive tests and not the true disease prevalence estimates. Methods to estimate the true prevalence of disease, adjusting for the sensitivity and the specificity of the diagnostic tests are available and can be applied, though, such procedures can be cumbersome to researchers with or without a solid statistical background. This manuscript introduces a web-based application that integrates statistical methods for Bayesian inference of true disease prevalence based on prior elicitation for the accuracy of the diagnostic tests. This tool allows practitioners to simultaneously analyse and visualize results while using interactive sliders and output prior/posterior plots.
Methods - Implementation: Three methods for prevalence prior elicitation and four core families of Bayesian methods have been combined and incorporated in this web tool. |tPRiors| user interface has been developed with R and Shiny and may be freely accessed on-line.
Results: |tPRiors| allows researchers to use preloaded data or upload their own datasets and perform analysis on either single or multiple population groups clusters, allowing, if needed, for excess zero prevalence. The final report is exported in raw parts either as.rdata or.png files and can be further analysed. We utilize a real multiple-population and a toy single-population dataset to demonstrate the robustness and capabilities of |tPRiors|.
Conclusions: We expect |tPRiors| to be helpful for researchers interested in true disease prevalence estimation and who are keen on accounting for prior information. |tPRiors| acts both as a statistical tool and a simplified step-by-step statistical framework that facilitates the use of complex Bayesian methods. The application of |tPRiors| is expected to aid standardization of practices in the field of Bayesian modelling on subject and multiple group-based true prevalence estimation.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-022-01557-1 | DOI Listing |
J Med Microbiol
January 2025
Field Service - South East and London, UK Health Security Agency, London, UK.
Shiga toxin-producing (STEC) infections are of public health concern as STEC can cause large national foodborne outbreaks of severe gastrointestinal disease, particularly in the young and elderly. In recent years, the implementation of PCR by diagnostic microbiology laboratories has improved the detection of STEC, and there has been an increase in notifications of cases of non-O157 STEC. However, the extent this increase in caseload can be attributed to the improved detection by PCR, or a true increase in non-O157 STEC infections, is unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Scleroderma Relat Disord
January 2025
Division of Rheumatology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Autonomic dysfunction is a common and early complication among patients with systemic sclerosis, suggesting that it may play a role in the pathogenesis of the disease and be a potential target for therapeutic interventions. Although the true prevalence of autonomic dysfunction among patients with systemic sclerosis is still unclear, it is estimated that as many as 80% of patients may be affected. Autonomic dysfunction may lead to widespread multi-organ dysfunction through its effects on the cardiovascular system, gastrointestinal tract, urinary tract, sweat and salivary glands, and pupils.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Med Res Methodol
January 2025
School of Mathematical Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, People's Republic of China.
Objective: To assess whether the outcome generation true model could be identified from other candidate models for clinical practice with current conventional model performance measures considering various simulation scenarios and a CVD risk prediction as exemplar.
Study Design And Setting: Thousands of scenarios of true models were used to simulate clinical data, various candidate models and true models were trained on training datasets and then compared on testing datasets with 25 conventional use model performance measures. This consists of univariate simulation (179.
Vet Microbiol
January 2025
Département de pathologie et microbiologie, Faculté de médecine vétérinaire, Université de Montréal, Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada; Research Chair in Biosecurity of Dairy Production, Faculté de médecine vétérinaire, Université de Montréal, Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada.
Paratuberculosis, a chronic wasting disease affecting domestic and wild ruminants worldwide, is caused by Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP). Various diagnostic tests exist for detecting MAP infection; however, none of them possess perfect accuracy to be qualified as a reference standard test, particularly due to their notably low sensitivity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLung Cancer
January 2025
Internal Medicine III, Wakayama Medical University, Wakayama, Japan.
Objectives: The lack of definitive biomarkers presents a significant challenge for chemo-immunotherapy in extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC). We aimed to identify key genes associated with chemo-immunotherapy efficacy in ES-SCLC through comprehensive gene expression analysis using machine learning (ML).
Methods: A prospective multicenter cohort of patients with ES-SCLC who received first-line chemo-immunotherapy was analyzed.
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