ArticleStatistical methods in medical research2023
Missing values and inconclusive results in diagnostic studies - A scoping review of methods.
Article in Statistical methods in medical research, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Methodological considerations in assessing diagnostic accuracy of home sleep apnea tests in children.Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine · 2026Article
- Decision-Support Framework for Nutritional Risk in Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Time-Series Model Using Imputation Strategies for Incomplete Clinical Data.Thoracic cancer · 2026Article
- Comparison of methods to handle missing values in a binary index test in a diagnostic accuracy study - a simulation study.BMC medical research methodology · 2026Article
- Vertebra-Level Completeness Analysis in Thoracolumbar Ultrasound Using a YOLO-Based Detection Framework.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Comparison of methods to handle missing values in a continuous index test in a diagnostic accuracy study - a simulation study.BMC medical research methodology · 2025Article
- Programmatic Diagnostic Accuracy and Clinical Utility of Xpert MTB/XDR in Patients With Rifampicin-Resistant Tuberculosis in Georgia.Open forum infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Implementing multiple imputations for addressing missing data in multireader multicase design studies.BMC medical research methodology · 2024Article
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Most diagnostic studies exclude missing values and inconclusive results from the analysis or apply simple methods resulting in biased accuracy estimates. This may be due to the lack of availability or awareness of appropriate methods. This scoping review aimed to provide an overview of strategies to handle missing values and inconclusive results in the reference standard or index test in diagnostic accuracy studies. Conducting a systematic literature search in MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science, we could identify many articles proposing methods for addressing missing values in the reference standard. There are also several articles describing methods regarding missing values or inconclusive results in the index test. The latter encompass imputation, frequentist and Bayesian likelihood, model-based, and latent class methods. While methods for missing values in the reference standard are regularly applied in practice, this is not true for methods addressing missing values and inconclusive results in the index test. Our comprehensive overview and description of available methods may raise further awareness of these methods and will enhance their application. Future research is needed to compare the performance of these methods under different conditions to give valid and robust recommendations for their usage in various diagnostic accuracy research scenarios.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.