Discriminant function analysis applied to laboratory tests in patients with hepatobiliary disease

✍ Scribed by Graham Ellis; D.M. Goldberg

• Book ID: 103052461
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1979
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 947 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0010-4809
• DOI: 10.1016/0010-4809(79)90034-x

✦ Synopsis

Discriminant function analysis was applied to laboratory test data on 535 patients with hepatobiliary disease and a control group of 185 subjects. Ten biochemical and three immunological tests were measured in each of the patients who were classified by disease into 14 groups. Discriminant function analysis was applied to these 14 groups followed by cross validation studies using a computer classification program. This general approach was compared subsequently with more specific applications directed to the following decision pairs: medical or surgical disease; intrahepatic cholestasis or extrahepatic obstruction; alcoholic liver disease or no organic disease; and primary biliary cirrhosis or chronic hepatitis. In general, the diagnostic accuracy of the specific applications was better than that which had been achieved in the general approach for the same decision. However, where the diagnostic pairs contained heterogeneous groups, the increased accuracy was marginal. The usefulness of these procedures is compared with diagnostic systems described by other authors.