A patient's stiff neck turned into severe pain, preventing him from ge

A patient's stiff neck turned into severe pain, preventing him from getting up out of bed or even sitting at a desk without neck support. An X-ray revealed what appeared to be a fracture in one of the patient's spinal bifids. It is possible this fracture was already there, as is common with the spinal bifid as a birth defect. If there indeed was a neck bone fracture, it could lead to serious problems with the spinal cord, including body paralysis. Neck surgery might then be necessary.

Because a neck bone fracture is potentially paralytic, patients with such symptoms almost always have neck surgery. The appropriate surgery is performed unnecessarily in about 25% of all cases. A newly developed internal scan for the spine is highly accurate, producing 3 misdiagnoses for every 97 correct diagnoses. Clearly, using this test, doctors can largely avoid unnecessary neck surgery without, however, performing any fewer necessary ones than before, since __________.

Which of the following most logically completes the argument?


(A) the patients who are correctly diagnosed with this test as not having a neck bone fracture invariably have medical conditions that are much less serious than a neck bone fracture

(B) every patient who is diagnosed with this test as having neck bone fractures has more than one of the symptoms generally associated with neck bone fractures

(C) all of the patients who are diagnosed with this test as having neck bone fractures do, in fact, have neck bone fractures

(D) the misdiagnoses produced by this test are always instances of attributing neck bone fracture to someone who does not, in fact, have it

(E) the only patients who are misdiagnosed using this test are patients who lack one or more of the symptoms that are generally associated with neck bone fractures