Abstract
Assessment of the accuracy of diagnostic procedures is made independent of diagnostic criteria by means of a receiver-operating-characteristics (ROC) curve. We performed ROC analysis for the major serum antiproteases: alpha-1-antitrypsin (A1AT) and alpha-2-macroglobulin (A2M), in 99 cancer patients compared with 71 normal individuals. A1AT and A2M were significantly higher in cancer patients (p < 0.0005). By comparing true positive and false positive rates for different serum levels, ROC analysis showed that serum A1AT quantification seems more useful in clinical practice than serum A2M.
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