7. Pooled sensitivity and specificity of the real‐time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) overall meta‐analysis and the sensitivity analysis.

Analysis	Sensitivity (95% CI)	Specificity (fixed at 95%)
Overall meta‐analysis real‐time PCR	29% (15% to 49%)	95%
Exclusion of studies at 'high risk of bias' for patient selection	33% (18% to 52%)	95%
Exclusion of studies at 'high risk of bias' for reference standard	37% (15% to 66%)	95%
Alternative datasets for the overall meta‐analysis	32% (17% to 52%)	95%
Exclusion of studies in which participants used antibiotics	28% (12% to 53%)	95%
Meta‐analysis with the lower MAT threshold dataset	29% (16% to 47%)	95%

CI: confidence intervals; MAT: microscopic agglutination test