title: A non-inferiority test of areas under two parametric ROC curves.
abstract: Equivalence or non-inferiority in diagnostic accuracy of two medical diagnostic tests is a common medical problem. Statistical tests of non-inferiority of diagnostic tests have long been a subject of interest in medicine and biostatistical research. Accuracy of a continuous diagnostic test can be evaluated by the area under a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. A conventional non-inferiority test for areas of two parametric ROC curves has been proposed by Zhou, Obuchowski, and McClish [Zhou XH, Obuchowski NA, McClish DK. Statistical Methods in Diagnostic Medicine. New York: John Wiley; 2002]. In this paper, we showed that this conventional approach is anti-conservative and proposed a new statistical test based on restricted maximum likelihood estimator to achieve designed type I error rate. Simulation studies supported this new test to be appropriate for small sample size or highly correlated diagnostic modalities.
authors.affiliation: School of Mathematical Sciences and Center for Studies of Psychological Application, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China. jinh1@163.com
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lu