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• Error in Table 2
  M Krishna Murthy
  Published on: 4 October 2012

• Published on: 4 October 2012

  Error in Table 2

  • M Krishna Murthy, ST6 EM

  Dear Editor and Authors,

  While studying for my upcoming FCEM critical appraisal examination I happened to use this paper, with it's table of sensitivities, specificities, PPV and NPVs, to practice some calculations. Unfortunately it would appear that some errors have made it into the final publication of this data (I am unsure whether they were simply transcribed incorrectly). In the first line of the table the...

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  Dear Editor and Authors,

  While studying for my upcoming FCEM critical appraisal examination I happened to use this paper, with it's table of sensitivities, specificities, PPV and NPVs, to practice some calculations. Unfortunately it would appear that some errors have made it into the final publication of this data (I am unsure whether they were simply transcribed incorrectly). In the first line of the table the sensitivity and specificity values seem to have been reversed. However (more worryingly as it refers to the primary outcome) in the second line of the table the specificity presented should be 94% based on the numbers given. Given that the PPV and NPV remain unchanged when calculated this would appear to be a genuine miscalculation and unfortunately this has also been published in the results section of the abstract. Although this still would be below the threshold sensitivity of 98% which had been set by the authors, it is clearly far closer than one would otherwise have been lead to believe.

  Dr M Krishna Murthy MBChB MCEM BSc Hons

  Conflict of Interest:

  None declared

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  Conflict of Interest:
  None declared.

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