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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2008 Jun 11.
Published in final edited form as: Oral Oncol. 2007 Sep 6;44(1):10–22. doi: 10.1016/j.oraloncology.2007.06.011

Table 2.

Characteristics of a good screening test

A screening test should:

  1. be simple, safe and acceptable to the public

  2. detect disease early in its natural history

  3. preferentially detect those lesions which are likely to progress

  4. detect lesions which are treatable or where an intervention will prevent progression

  5. have a high positive predictive value and low false negatives (high sensitivity)