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Comment by ses1984 | Hacker News Reader

ses1984·

Only 11% of errors were reported, there were probably many more.

Also, the standard for tests in the medical world is usually much higher than 11%, except for things that are life threatening for which no better test exists.

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The error rate could be higher, which I mentioned already, but who knows how much higher. I don’t see how speculating about the error rate helps anything. Did you mean to say the error rate is usually much lower than 11%?

> except for things that are life threatening for which no better test exists.

This was precisely why I chose the FIT test example. There is, in fact, a more reliable test than the FIT test. Several, it turns out. Reliability isn’t the reason for the FIT test’s popularity.

I was unfamiliar with the fit test but after checking on it I guess its false positive rate is acceptable because it is used as a screening prior to a more invasive colonoscopy. In other words proper application of the test as a screening tool should result in fewer colonoscopies, not more.

The false positive rate isn’t the problem, the false negative rate is, which is why I mentioned the false negative rate above, and not the false positive rate. Obviously it would result in fewer colonoscopies and that’s the problem. The whole reason people take a FIT test is to avoid getting a colonoscopy. False negatives means a larger percentage of people will have cancer and not be aware of it, and not schedule a more reliable test until the cancer develops further and gets caught later by some other test maybe. The FIT test is better than nothing, but worse than getting a colonoscopy in terms of safety and reliability. It’s popular because it’s convenient, not because it’s highly reliable.

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