Corrigendum to Is the area under an ROC curve a valid measure of the performance of a screening or diagnostic test?

Wald NJ and Bestwick JP. Is the area under an ROC curve a valid measure of the performance of a screening or diagnostic test? J Med Screen 2014; 21(1): 51–56

The authors have requested the following amendments to the tables: The first rows in Tables 2 and 3 are, except for one number in each row, incorrect. In the first row of Table 2 the detection rates for false positive rates of 5%, 10% and 15% should be 14%, 20% and 24% respectively. The false-positive rates for detection rates of 50%, 70% and 90% should be 50%, 78% and 97% respectively.

Table 2.

Detection rates for specified false-positive rates and false-positives rates for specified detection rates according to AUC with the standard deviation in affected individuals 50% greater than standard deviation in unaffected individuals. Difference in means between affected and unaffected individuals in units of the standard deviation in unaffected individuals (SD_U).

AUC	Difference in means (SDU)	DR (%) for FPR of:-			FPR (%) for DR of:-		90%
		5%	10%	15%	50%	70%
0.50	0	14	20	24	50	78	97
0.55	0.23	17	24	29	41	71	96
0.60	0.46	21	29	35	32	63	93
0.65	0.69	26	35	41	24	54	89
0.70	0.95	32	41	48	17	44	84
0.75	1.22	39	48	55	11	33	76
0.80	1.52	47	56	63	6.5	23	66
0.85	1.87	56	65	71	3.1	14	52
0.90	2.31	67	75	80	1.0	6.4	35
0.95	2.97	81	87	90	0.2	1.5	15
0.99	4.19	96	97	98	0.0	0.0	1.2
1.00	>4.19	100	100	100	0	0	0

DR: detection rate; FPR: false-positive rate; AUC: area under the curve.

In the first row of Table 3

Table 3.

Detection rates for specified false-positive rates and false-positives rates for specified detection rates according to AUC With the standard deviation in affected individuals 100% greater than standard deviation in unaffected individuals. Difference in means between affected and unaffected individuals in units of the standard deviation in unaffected individuals (SD_U).

AUC	Difference in means (SDU)	DR (%) for FPR of:-			FPR (%) for DR of:-		90%
		5%	10%	15%	50%	70%
0.50	0	21	26	30	50	85	99
0.55	0.28	25	31	35	39	78	99
0.60	0.57	29	36	41	29	69	98
0.65	0.86	35	42	47	19	57	96
0.70	1.17	41	48	53	12	45	92
0.75	1.51	47	55	59	6.6	32	85
0.80	1.88	55	62	66	3.0	20	75
0.85	2.32	63	70	74	1.0	10	60
0.90	2.87	73	79	82	0.2	3.5	38
0.95	3.68	85	88	91	0.0	0.4	13
0.99	5.20	96	98	98	0.0	0.0	0.4
1.00	>5.20	100	100	100	0	0	0

DR: detection rate; FPR: false-positive rate; AUC: area under the curve.

the detection rates for false-positive rates of 5%, 10% and 15% should be 21%, 26% and 30% respectively. The false-positive rates for detection rates of 50%, 70% and 90% should be 50%, 85% and 99% respectively. The corrected versions of the tables are reproduced below: