Question

A Papanicolaou test (Pap smear) was administered to a total of 10,000 women between the ages of 18 and 65 as a screening test for cervical cancer in a large hospital. Two hundred of these women screened positive and on further testing were found to have cervical abnormalities. Another 750 women screened positive and on further testing were found not to have any indication of disease. 9,000 women screened negative and remained free of disease throughout the duration of the study. The prevalence of cervical cancer in the target population is 2.5%. What is the sensitivity of the papanicolaou test in this population?

Answer 1

The sensitivity of the Pap smear in the given population is calculated to be 100%, as all 200 women who tested positive and were confirmed to have cervical abnormalities are considered true positives. No information about false negatives was given, and thus they are assumed to be zero in this calculation.

Step-by-step explanation:

The sensitivity of the Papanicolaou test, commonly known as a Pap smear, measures its ability to correctly identify those with cervical abnormalities among all true cases. In the scenario provided, sensitivity can be calculated by dividing the number of true positive results by the sum of the true positive and false negative results. In other words, it's the proportion of women who truly have cervical abnormalities who are correctly identified by the test as having those abnormalities.

To calculate it in this instance, 200 women were correctly identified as having cervical abnormalities out of a total of true cases. Since we don't have information on false negatives in the provided data, we'll assume that all women who had cervical abnormalities were included as those who tested positive. So the sensitivity is calculated as:

Sensitivity = True Positives / (True Positives + False Negatives)
Sensitivity = 200 / (200 + 0) = 200 / 200 = 1
Sensitivity = 100%

It is important to note that in the real world, no test has perfect sensitivity, and it is likely that there are false negatives which are not accounted for in this data. However, based on the information provided, the Pap smear has a sensitivity of 100% in this particular data set.