Is the sensitivity of primary ciliary dyskinesia detection by ciliary function analysis 100%?

Abstract

To the Editor: We read with interest the article by Pifferi et al. [1] in the April issue of the European Respiratory Journal , describing a technique of soft computing analysis to increase the diagnostic accuracy of air liquid interface cultures for the diagnosis of primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD). The diagnosis of PCD is indeed difficult, time-consuming and expensive [2, 3]. Extensive efforts have been made to increase the diagnostic accuracy of the available tests. We worry that the authors miscalculated the statistical parameters sensitivity and specificity. Sensitivity reflects the accuracy of a new test to detect an abnormal result in a disease state (true positives), compared to the results of the gold standard to diagnose the disease state [4]. It is calculated by the formula a/a+b, in which a is the number of true positives and b the number of false positives (table 1). Specificity, on the other hand, reflects the accuracy of the new test to diagnose a normal value, …