Abstract
The goal of the initial workup is to determine therapy; therefore, the selection of diagnostic procedures should be based on their direct contribution to this decision. If the clinician’s decision will not be affected by the result of a given examination, that examination is probably not worth the time, the discomfort, the risk, or the money it entails. The decision-making potential of any diagnostic test is a function of the risk of the therapy, the risk of the disease, and the error rate of the examination. A test used to screen for a particular abnormality should be chosen also on its probability of a significant yield in the affected population.
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© 1982 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
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Humphrey, E.W., McKeown, D.L. (1982). Diagnostic Procedures. In: Manual of Pulmonary Surgery. Comprehensive Manuals of Surgical Specialties. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-5746-2_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-5746-2_1
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