Evaluating Diagnostic Tests for Helicobacter pylori Infection Without a Reference Standard: Use of Latent Class...

Evaluation of diagnostic tests requires reference standards, which are often unavailable. Latent class analysis (LCA) can be used to evaluate diagnostic tests without reference standards, using a combination of observed and estimated results. Conditionally independent diagnostic tests for Helicobacter pylori infection are required. We used LCA to construct a reference standard and evaluate the capability of non-invasive tests (stool antigen test and serum antibody test) to diagnose H. pylori infection compared with the conventional method, where histology is the reference standard. A total of 96 healthy subjects with endoscopy histology results were enrolled from January to July 2016. Sensitivity and specificity were determined for the LCA approach (i.e., using a combination of three tests as the reference standard) and the conventional method. When LCA was used, sensitivity and specificity were 83.8% and 99.4% for histology, 80.0% and 81.9% for the stool antigen test, and 63.6% and 89.3% for the serum antibody test, respectively. When the conventional method was used, sensitivity and specificity were 75.8% and 71.1% for the stool antigen test and 77.7% and 60.7% for the serum antibody test, respectively. LCA can be applied to evaluate diagnostic tests that lack a reference standard.