A 45-year-old woman arrives to the office complaining of a palpable thyroid node. According to her medical history, she was diagnosed with medulloblastoma as a youngster and treated with chemotherapy and external beam radiation. Thyroid fine-needle aspiration reveals no cancerous cells. "What are the possibilities that I don't have thyroid cancer?" the patient wonders as the test findings are revealed to her. Which of the diagnostic test parameters listed below would be most helpful in addressing this patient's question?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Eductional Objective: Negative predictive value (NPV) is the probability of not having a disease when the test result is negative. The NPV will vary with the pretest probability of a disease. A patient with a high probability of having a disease will have a low NPV with a negative test, but a patient with a low probability of having a disease will have a high NPV with a negative test.

A 45-Year-Old Woman Arrives to the Office Complaining of a Palpable