Re: Appendicitis (inflammation of the appendix) is potentially fatal; cons
[#permalink]
23 Sep 2023, 05:33
We are looking here for a strengthener. The main concern is the 2% misdiagnosis. Suppose the 2% misdiagnosis leads to missing the people who have appendicitis - it's a disaster. But if they are people who don't have it, the test misdiagnoses them as having it, at best, no harm to them.
Option Elimination -
(A) the patients who are correctly diagnosed with this test as not having appendicitis invariably have medical conditions that are much less serious than appendicitis - other medical conditions are out of scope.
(B) the misdiagnoses produced by this test are always instances of attributing appendicitis to someone who does not, in fact, have it - per our pre-thinking.
(C) all of the patients who are diagnosed with this test as having appendicitis do, in fact, have appendicitis - we are concerned about misdiagnosis, out of scope.
(D) every patient who is diagnosed with this test as having appendicitis has more than one of the symptoms generally associated with appendicitis - we are concerned about misdiagnosis, out of scope.
(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 appendicitis - if they lack one or more symptoms, does it mean they don't have it? We don't know. Maybe they still have it, and other symptoms show the appendicitis. Distortion.