title: A Bayesian precision profile for measuring the quality of immunoassay experiments.
abstract: A precision profile, the relationship between the concentration of a substance and its measured precision, is a convenient way of conveying the ability of an immunoassay to accurately measure the concentration of a substance in blood serum. A precision profile is characterized by the definition of precision. Historically, precision has been evaluated as the standard error of an estimator of the concentration in a sample conditional on the true concentration. In this paper, Bayesian predictive inference is used to develop a new measure of precision based on the accuracy with which an assay could infer the concentration in a hypothetical new sample. This leads to a natural procedure for evaluating a precision profile that avoids using approximations such as those inherent in traditional methods.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, 180 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115-5899, USA. omalley@hcp.med.harvard.edu
authors.forename: A James
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: O'Malley
mesh_terms: D001499:Bayes Theorem; D001699:Biometry; D001774:Blood Chemical Analysis / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007118:Immunoassay / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011786:Quality Control; D011863:Radioimmunoassay / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013974:Thyroxine / Q000097:blood
chemical_list: D013974:Thyroxine