Research into the methodology and the application of meta-analysis of diagnostic tests in clinical practice

作为给予患者特定诊断过程的一部分，临床医生通常会对患者进行一项或多项诊断测试。根据检查结果，他或她将判断病人是否患有某种疾病。不幸的是，诊断测试很少100%准确。临床医生会参考那些已经评估了测试准确性的研究，以帮助他们做出判断，并提高为患者做出正确诊断的机会。通常，评估一项测试的研究不止一项。一种被称为荟萃分析的技术被开发出来，将这些研究的结果结合起来，提供测试表现的总体总结。虽然作为一种结合患者治疗研究的方法被成功地使用，但迄今为止，对诊断测试研究的荟萃分析仅为执业临床医生提供了有限的应用。本研究的目的是探索可以增加meta分析对临床医生的效用的方法，并考虑在诊断研究中结合研究的替代方法。

As part of the process of giving a patient a particular diagnosis, the clinician will often apply one or more diagnostic tests to the patient. On the basis of the test results he or she will judge whether the patient has a particular disease. Unfortunately diagnostic tests are rarely 100% accurate. The clinician will refer to studies which have evaluated the accuracy of the test to aid their judgment and improve the chance of making the correct diagnosis for the patient.Often there is not just one study evaluating a test. A technique called meta-analysis has been developed to combine the results of these studies to provide an overall summary of the test‘s performance. Although used successfully as a method for combining studies on treatments of patients, meta-analysis of studies on diagnostic tests has so far provided only limited use to the practicing clinician. The aim of the research is to explore methods which may increase the utility of meta-analysis to the practicing clinician and consider alternative methods for combining studies in diagnostic research.