Abstract
As medical technology proliferates, we must have useful methods for evaluating that technology. One method - ROC curves - allows us to examine the spectrum of a test's usefulness. This paper discusses the concept of ROC curves and presents a simple method for estimating the area under the ROC curve. This measurement - the area under the ROC curve (AUC) - gives a useful estimate of a test's discriminatory ability. One can easily estimate the AUC using microcomputer spreadsheet software. The paper demonstrates how to develop the program and suggests that spreadsheets be adopted for other simple statistical uses.
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Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
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