Biomoda Inc. (fka BMODQ)

[The Rainmaker]

A Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis of the sensitivity and specificity was shown to have an associated "p value" of less than .001, resulting in a statistically significant finding of CyPath(R)'s ability to discriminate between high-risk and cancer groups.

Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves are used in medicine to determine a cutoff value for a clinical test.

The goal of an ROC curve analysis is to determine the cutoff value. For example, in some screening applications it is important not to miss detecting an abnormal therefore it is more important to maximize sensitivity (minimize false negatives) than to maximize specificity.

The ratio of the abnormals found by the test to the total number of abnormals known to have the disease is the true positive rate (also known as sensitivity). The test will find some, but not all, normals to not have the disease. The ratio of the normals found by the test to the total number of normals (known from the ‘gold standard’ technique) is the true negative rate (also known as specificity). The hope is that the ROC curve analysis of the PSA test will find a cutoff value that will, in some way, minimize the number of false positives and false negatives. Minimizing the false positives and false negatives is the same as maximizing the sensitivity and specificity.