| Study characteristics |
| Patient sampling |
Between October 2005 and June 2009 all adult patients entered into the pathway were audited. 612 patients were entered into the care pathway, 27 children < 18 years were excluded. A further 36 patients did not have a minimum of at least 1 specimen each for EIA and PCR sent and were excluded from the analysis, leaving 549 patients for full analysis |
| Patient characteristics and setting |
Not much information on patient characteristics, but underlying diseases (Table 1) suggests a representative sample |
| Index tests |
Serum was collected twice weekly. Platelia kits (Bio‐Rad, UK) were used for the detection of galactomannan; any value
above 0.5 was considered significant although 0.5 to 0.7 was considered borderline and a repeat was requested |
| Target condition and reference standard(s) |
IFD was defined according to revised EORTC/MSG criteria (De Pauw 2008). GM is included within the EORTC/MSG consensus criteria to define probable infection |
| Flow and timing |
Timing not reported; all patients classified in the same way; all patients included in analyses |
| Comparative |
|
| No patients per category |
There were 6 cases of proven IA, 47 cases of probable IA and 23 cases of possible IA |
| Notes |
Work was supported by a grant from Gilead Sciences |
| Methodological quality |
| Item |
Authors' judgement |
Risk of bias |
Applicability concerns |
| DOMAIN 1: Patient Selection |
| Was a consecutive or random sample of patients enrolled? |
Yes |
|
|
| Was a case‐control design avoided? |
Yes |
|
|
| Did the study avoid inappropriate exclusions? |
Yes |
|
|
| |
|
Low |
Low |
| DOMAIN 2: Index Test All tests |
| Were the index test results interpreted without knowledge of the results of the reference standard? |
Unclear |
|
|
| If a threshold was used, was it pre‐specified? |
Yes |
|
|
| |
|
Unclear |
Low |
| DOMAIN 3: Reference Standard |
| Is the reference standards likely to correctly classify the target condition? |
Yes |
|
|
| Were the reference standard results interpreted without knowledge of the results of the index tests? |
No |
|
|
| |
|
High |
Low |
| DOMAIN 4: Flow and Timing |
| Was there an appropriate interval between index test and reference standard? |
Unclear |
|
|
| Did all patients receive the same reference standard? |
Yes |
|
|
| Were all patients included in the analysis? |
Yes |
|
|
| |
|
Low |
|
