| Study characteristics |
| Patient sampling |
Non‐haematological patients who underwent GM testing from January 2007 to December 2009 were evaluated retrospectively. Non‐haematological patients were defined as patients without haematological disease, including malignancies, or those who have not undergone HSCT |
| Patient characteristics and setting |
Non‐haematological patients, so high concern |
| Index tests |
Platelia test; an OD index of 0.5 was considered positive. All positive samples were retested and considered positive only if the repeat test was also positive |
| Target condition and reference standard(s) |
Each of the patients was classified according to the criteria of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer/Mycoses Study Group (EORTC) revised in 2008 (De Pauw 2008). Thus, the patients were categorised as proven, probable, possible and non‐IA. Proven and probable IA cases were defined as IA in this study. The definition of IA was not based on the GM test |
| Flow and timing |
Nothing reported on time intervals; all patients were classified by the same criteria; not clear if all patients were included in analyses |
| Comparative |
|
| No patients per category |
778 patients in total; 9 proven and 4 probable |
| Notes |
No conflicts of interest reported |
| Methodological quality |
| Item |
Authors' judgement |
Risk of bias |
Applicability concerns |
| DOMAIN 1: Patient Selection |
| Was a consecutive or random sample of patients enrolled? |
Unclear |
|
|
| Was a case‐control design avoided? |
Yes |
|
|
| Did the study avoid inappropriate exclusions? |
Unclear |
|
|
| |
|
Unclear |
High |
| 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 |
|
|
| |
|
Low |
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? |
Yes |
|
|
| |
|
Low |
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? |
Unclear |
|
|
| |
|
Unclear |
|
