ROC Analysis for Evaluation of Radiation Biodosimetry Technologies

Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis is a fundamental tool used for the evaluation and comparison of diagnostic systems that provides estimates of the combinations of sensitivity and specificity that can be achieved with a given technique. Along with critical considerations of practical limitations, such as throughput and time to availability of results, ROC analyses can be applied to provide meaningful assessments and comparisons of available biodosimetry methods. Accordingly, guidance from the Food and Drug Administration to evaluate biodosimetry devices recommends using ROC analysis. However, the existing literature for the numerous biodosimetry methods that have been developed to address the needs for triage either do not contain ROC analyses or present ROC analyses where the dose distributions of the study samples are not representative of the populations to be screened. The use of non-representative sample populations can result in a significant spectrum bias, where estimated performance metrics do not accurately characterize the true performance under real-world conditions. Particularly, in scenarios where a large group of people is screened because they were potentially exposed in a large-scale radiation event, directly measured population data do not exist. However, a number of complex simulations have been performed and reported in the literature that provide estimates of the required dose distributions. Based on these simulations and reported data about...
Source: Radiation Protection Dosimetry - Category: Radiology Authors: Tags: Paper Source Type: research