Final answer:
A test that detects 98% of people with a disease but also has a high false positive rate refers to the accuracy of a diagnostic test. This can happen when the test is sensitive to other factors or conditions that share similarities with the disease being tested for. To address cases where a patient's western blot test is indeterminate, the hospital would typically follow up with additional tests to confirm the presence or absence of the disease.
Step-by-step explanation:
A test that detects 98% of people with a disease but also has a high false positive rate refers to the accuracy of a diagnostic test. In this case, the test has a high sensitivity (ability to correctly identify true positives) but a low specificity (tendency to produce false positives). For example, if 1000 people are tested, 980 of the people with the disease would be correctly identified, but a significant number of healthy individuals may also test positive.
This can happen when the test is sensitive to other factors or conditions that share similarities with the disease being tested for. For instance, the detection method might produce a positive result for a patient with a different but similar infection or condition.
To address cases where a patient's western blot test is indeterminate, the hospital would typically follow up with additional tests to confirm the presence or absence of the disease. In this case, the hospital may use a PCR test to look for specific sequences of the disease's genetic material.