diagnosis of swine flu: wieghting between false positive and false negative
professor virojwiwanitkit, director, physician,
April 29, 2016
Editor, I read the recent publication by Mann et al. with a great
interest. Mann et al. concluded that " There is a significant risk of harm
with false-positive diagnoses and potential delays in appropriate
treatment [1]." I agree that there are several problem in diagnosis of
swine flu. Several problems can lead to the failure of using any scoring
system or algorithm for diagnosis [2-3]. On the other hands, although
several new diagnostic tools can be availble, the problem of false
positive can be seen. How to manage and weight for risk and benefit on
using simple method with possible false negative and new modern tools with
possible high cost and false positive should be the topic to be discussed.
References
1. Mann C, Wood D, Davies P. An evaluation of the UK National
Pandemic Flu Service swine flu algorithm in hospitalised children, and
comparison with the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical
Excellence fever guideline. Emerg Med J. 2010 Sep 3. [Epub ahead of print]
2. Wiwanitkit V. Scoring system for diagnosis of swine flu. Heart Lung.
2010 Jul-Aug;39(4):345-6.
Editor, I read the recent publication by Mann et al. with a great interest. Mann et al. concluded that " There is a significant risk of harm with false-positive diagnoses and potential delays in appropriate treatment [1]." I agree that there are several problem in diagnosis of swine flu. Several problems can lead to the failure of using any scoring system or algorithm for diagnosis [2-3]. On the other hands, although several new diagnostic tools can be availble, the problem of false positive can be seen. How to manage and weight for risk and benefit on using simple method with possible false negative and new modern tools with possible high cost and false positive should be the topic to be discussed.
References
1. Mann C, Wood D, Davies P. An evaluation of the UK National Pandemic Flu Service swine flu algorithm in hospitalised children, and comparison with the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence fever guideline. Emerg Med J. 2010 Sep 3. [Epub ahead of print]
2. Wiwanitkit V. Scoring system for diagnosis of swine flu. Heart Lung. 2010 Jul-Aug;39(4):345-6.
3. Wiwanitkit V.Swine flu: the present pandemic infectious disease. Kulak Burun Bogaz Ihtis Derg. 2009 Mar-Apr;19(2):57-61.
Conflict of Interest:
no