{"entity":{"id":"sensitivity-specificity","kind":"term","name":"Sensitivity and specificity","aka":[],"tldr":"Sensitivity is the share of people with the disease a test catches; specificity is the share of healthy people it correctly clears. No test scores 100% on both, and for screening the trade-off decides how many false alarms you get.","summary":"Sensitivity (true-positive rate) and specificity (true-negative rate) are properties of the test at a chosen cut-off and are usually estimated against a reference standard such as colonoscopy or biopsy in a study like ECLIPSE or BLUE-C. What a person experiences, the chance that a positive result is real, is the positive predictive value, which depends on how common the disease is: at a 1% cancer prevalence, a test with 99% specificity still generates about as many false positives as true positives. Screening tests trade sensitivity against specificity by moving the cut-off; a multi-cancer blood test set to high specificity (99.5% for Galleri) accepts low sensitivity for early-stage cancer. Sensitivity for precancerous lesions, not cancer, is what distinguishes tests that prevent colorectal cancer from tests that detect it.","asOf":"2026-09-10","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitivity_and_specificity","links":[{"label":"Wikipedia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitivity_and_specificity"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":["ppv","screening","overdiagnosis"],"trials":["blue-c","eclipse-shield"],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"category":"Diagnostics & imaging"},"route":"/terms/sensitivity-specificity/","neighbours":{"term":[{"id":"overdiagnosis","kind":"term","name":"Overdiagnosis","route":"/terms/overdiagnosis/"},{"id":"ppv","kind":"term","name":"Positive predictive value (PPV)","route":"/terms/ppv/"},{"id":"screening","kind":"term","name":"Screening","route":"/terms/screening/"}],"trial":[{"id":"blue-c","kind":"trial","name":"BLUE-C","route":"/trials/blue-c/"},{"id":"deep-c","kind":"trial","name":"DeeP-C","route":"/trials/deep-c/"},{"id":"eclipse-shield","kind":"trial","name":"ECLIPSE (Shield blood test)","route":"/trials/eclipse-shield/"},{"id":"insite","kind":"trial","name":"INSITE","route":"/trials/insite/"},{"id":"preempt-crc","kind":"trial","name":"PREEMPT CRC","route":"/trials/preempt-crc/"},{"id":"psma-prerp","kind":"trial","name":"PSMA-PreRP","route":"/trials/psma-prerp/"}],"paper":[{"id":"paper-nhs-galleri-performance-nat-med-2026","kind":"paper","name":"Performance of a multi-cancer early detection test in the randomized controlled NHS-Galleri trial","route":"/key-papers/paper-nhs-galleri-performance-nat-med-2026/"}],"drug":[{"id":"afirma","kind":"drug","name":"Afirma Genomic Sequencing Classifier","route":"/drugs/afirma/"},{"id":"cologuard-plus","kind":"drug","name":"Cologuard Plus","route":"/drugs/cologuard-plus/"},{"id":"simplescreen-crc","kind":"drug","name":"SimpleScreen CRC","route":"/drugs/simplescreen-crc/"}],"technology":[{"id":"hand-held-ultrasound","kind":"technology","name":"Hand-held and point-of-care ultrasound","route":"/technologies/hand-held-ultrasound/"},{"id":"quantitative-imaging-biomarkers","kind":"technology","name":"Quantitative imaging biomarkers (RECIST, PERCIST, SUV, ADC)","route":"/technologies/quantitative-imaging-biomarkers/"},{"id":"serum-tumour-markers","kind":"technology","name":"Serum tumour markers: proper use and misuse","route":"/technologies/serum-tumour-markers/"},{"id":"urine-bladder-cancer-tests","kind":"technology","name":"Urine tests for bladder cancer (cytology, FISH, RNA and methylation)","route":"/technologies/urine-bladder-cancer-tests/"},{"id":"via-cervical-screening","kind":"technology","name":"Visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) for cervical screening","route":"/technologies/via-cervical-screening/"}]}}