. 2007 Dec 19;46(2):644–651. doi: 10.1128/JCM.00801-07

TABLE 3.

Results of culture versus PCR/ESI-MS assay at various detection amplitude cutoffs for 786 clinical and environmental samples

Amplitude cutoff for detection (no. of molecules)^a	No. of samples^b:					Sensitivity (%)	Specificity (%)
Amplitude cutoff for detection (no. of molecules)^a	Vir⁺/MS⁺	Vir⁺/MS⁻	Vir⁻/MS⁺	Vir⁻/MS⁻	Total	Sensitivity (%)	Specificity (%)
50	131	4	40	611	786	0.97	0.94
100	129	6	35	616	786	0.96	0.95
300	124	11	19	632	786	0.92	0.97

Minimum level of virus in a sample that would lead to a declaration of a positive detection by the analysis software.

Vir, culture result; MS, PCR/ESI-MS result.